January 27, 2023 Show with Gavin Peacock on “A Greater Glory: From Pitch to Pulpit”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of Founding Father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Chris Arnson. Good afternoon,

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Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 27th day of January, 2023.

I am so glad that during a conversation recently with my friend

Owen Strand that he reminded me I need to get

Gavin Peacock back on my program, and I immediately took him up on his recommendation and his reminding of me to do so.

Gavin Peacock is, or should I say was, a Premier League footballer in the

UK, and for our listeners here in the United States, that's a pro soccer player, and he turned associate pastor at Calvary Grace Church of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and today we're going to be addressing his book,

A Greater Glory from Pitch to Pulpit. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Gavin Peacock.

Great to be with you, Chris, after all these years. Yeah, and let me right away give our email address in the event that our listeners would like to ask you a question.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

Before we get into our discussion on your book, Gavin, please let our listeners know something about Calvary Grace Church of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Sure. We're a church plant of about 16 years now here in Calgary, Alberta.

Clint Humphrey is a senior pastor who planted the church by God's grace, and I've been on board as an associate pastor.

I'm just going into my 12th year now of pastoral ministry. The Lord has blessed us.

We've grown in number over the last two or three years greatly, probably about 250 on a

Sunday now, and I would say depth in obedience to the Lord as well as we've sought to deliver expositional preaching, and yeah, we've got a healthy church growing here.

Where would your theological positions lie? We would be broadly

Reformed. We're Baptistic, Complementarian, obviously

Protestant in that Reformed tradition, so a little bit of an anomaly in some of the pop evangelicalism that we have in this part of the world, and yet I would say that the

Lord has used us to help other churches to grow in their own biblical health, the marks of what is a healthy church, and in that sense, we punch a little bit above our weight in terms of we're not a mega -church, and yet the

Lord's used us in this part of the world to further the kingdom. So we're grateful to him, and yeah, we're finding as well that as we stayed open during the

COVID period, people were coming to us for the fact that not that we were Reformed or Complementarian or any of these things, but that we were open, and then they started to hear expositional preaching, and they've stayed, and that's been another blessing to us as well.

Oh, praise God, and I'm assuming that you did not receive the backlash from the government, the

Canadian government, as other churches that remained open unfortunately had to experience?

We did experience some kind of intrusions and phone calls.

We sought to kind of adhere to the certain restrictions as best we could while staying open, and that's what we did.

We did stay open. I think we were only closed just for the first few weeks of COVID like everyone else, but we had a capacity, a size in our church which allowed for that, and our posture and should be the same for all

Christians is a posture of submission to the authorities that God has put over us when it means that we are in line with God's Word, and of course at different times, the government did overreach, and there were certain pastors whom they came down on.

Great. Well, if anybody wants to find out more about Calvary Grace Church in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, go to calvarygrace .ca.

That's C -A -L -V as in Victor, A -R -Y, grace .ca. I know it's a bit of a tongue twister since Calgary and Calvary are only different in one letter, but it's

Calvary with a V as in Victor, Grace Church of Calgary with G as in God in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

We already have a question that I think is appropriate to ask right away because it involves the title of your book.

We have Ted in Moundville, Alabama who says, please explain the pitch in your title,

A Greater Glory from Pitch to Pulpit. Yeah, I knew when I had that title that for Americans they might think pitch as in a baseball pitch.

Right, right. But I'm talking about the soccer pitch, the soccer field. And so it's my journey from the soccer pitch to the pulpit.

And even in between that, I worked after retiring from playing professionally. I worked for BBC on the media side of things as what we call a pundit on TV and radio for six years.

So I literally went from pitch to punditry to pulpit, but I thought it was a bit shorter to just say pitch to pulpit.

And this is not really central to our conversation today, but I have always wondered, why do you think,

I don't know how familiar you are with American culture, if you've spent any time here at all, but I've always wondered why soccer or football, as you call it, has never caught on here as a professional sport with the popularity it enjoys everywhere else on the planet

Earth. I mean, Europe and South America and Central America and Canada and,

I mean, everywhere, Africa, the West Indies, it is such a popular sport.

And around here, the only time you see the popularity of the sport revealed, at least in my experience, is if you go to a specific ethnic restaurant that happens to have a team in a certain game, like a

German restaurant or an Italian restaurant, you'll see the place packed, if they have a large -screen

TV, that is, gathered around the TV. But it is an extremely popular sport from preschool to high school, senior in high school and even college, but why do you think it never caught on here as a professional sport?

You know, and I do explain this in my book, I spent two years, when I was 11 years old, living in Tampa, Florida, and that was in the late 70s and into the early 80s.

And my father, Keith, who was a professional footballer, he retired from playing in the

UK and was offered the position as assistant coach of the Tampa Bay Rowdies.

And back then, Chris, they were in the NASL, that's the North American Soccer League, and it was big.

The Rowdies shared the stadium with the Tampa Bay Bucs in the old Sombrero Stadium. They were getting 40 ,000 there for games.

The NASL was bringing in the biggest names in the world, the likes of Pele, who just died recently, and George Best and Johan Cruyff.

The greatest players in the world were coming to the States, and it was a real kind of, right, this is a boost to get this sport going in this nation.

And it did for a while, but it never could compete, ultimately, with the big American sports.

And I think that's what it is. It's still played well at grassroots level. The U .S.

national team have been a decent team and grown over the years as a decent team.

They're a difficult team to play against. Obviously, the U .S. women's team are a phenomenal team.

And yet, really, in the professional game, which is the MLS now, it's just never been as big because it just can't compete with those big

American sports, which is part of the American culture. And yet, you know, the figures for the

Super Bowl are absolutely dwarfed by the figures for watching the World Cup final, because football, soccer is the biggest sport in the world.

Right. And I had my own theory, because there is a similarity between hockey and soccer or football, as you call it, in that they're both low -scoring games, typically.

But hockey is an extremely popular sport here in the United States. And I have a theory that is because you can fight on the rink and in hockey, although they get penalties, they don't get removed from the sport completely.

And in soccer or your version of football, the fighting seems to only take place in the stands, from what

I understand. Yeah, it used to as well, very much so in the 1980s and 90s, less so now.

But for sure, I'm still trying to work that fighting thing out. I mean, I'm living in Canada, so you've got hockey all around.

I mean, you talk about soccer not being so big in the States. Well, it's even less so here.

But yeah, I've been to some hockey games. I still can't figure out why they allow for the fighting. They tell me it's a way of diffusing anger and getting it out of the system.

But yeah, you could be right there. That's what people in North America have been used to.

And soccer doesn't allow for it. And I think there is that thing about that it can be low -scoring.

And you can end, this is what I think a lot of Americans don't like, that you can end a game in 0 -0, 0 -0.

And you've been there for 90 minutes, and they want to see a winner, they want to see goals.

That's what their sports have provided. So just a little bit of a cultural thing has probably proven a block.

Yeah. Well, even though you have given your testimony on this program before, because this is not your first time,

I think it would be important for you to repeat your salvation testimony because of the nature of our discussion.

And to get a background of where you were coming from before you even became a footballer, if you could provide us with a summary of your salvation testimony, what kind of religious atmosphere in which you were raised, if any, and what kind of providential circumstances our sovereign

Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you? Well, I was actually brought up in a footballing family.

As I mentioned, my father, Keith, played professional football for 17 years for a team called

Charlton Athletic, which is in South London. So he was a one -club man.

In fact, he's the longest -serving outfield player in their history with the most amount of appearances.

And an interesting fact was that he was the first substitute ever used in English league football.

So back in the day, I always say when men were men, and if you got an injury and broke a leg, you carried on playing because there was no substitute.

The Football Association got together and said, listen, we need to have a 12th man. You know, just now it's amazing because there's so many substitutes on the bench.

A 12th man, a number 12. And on the first day that was implemented in the English season, my father was subbed for his team that day and got on before anyone else.

There was an injury. He got on. He was clocked as the first substitute ever used. It's actually a trivial pursuit question in Europe, a

European trivial pursuit. So I grew up around the smell of the dressing room. All I ever wanted to do was become a professional footballer like my dad.

And I wasn't brought up in a Christian home, so I was playing football on a Sunday. And I just went through the ranks of playing for my school and then my district and my county.

And at age 15, I represented my country, played for England's schoolboys. And then

I had all the big professional teams wanting to sign me. And I ended up signing for Queen's Park Rangers, which was a

West London team, which was in the top division, which we call the Premier League now. It's division one then.

And I left school at age 16 and signed professional. And really, in the next couple of years,

I've gone into a man's world now. It's a very hard and harsh environment. I'm playing football for a living now.

And I go in as a boy in front of men. And I realised that because football was my god, if I played well,

I was up. If I played badly, I was down. And so I'm up and down in these first couple of years.

And maybe being a professional footballer, which the world will tell you is everything, it's going to bring you joy because you've got the career, you've got the potential money, you've got the popularity with the fans.

Well, it wasn't bringing that satisfaction. So I was kind of wrestling with some big issues of life. I lived at home at the time.

And just one evening, as I said, not grew up in a Christian home, but my mum decided to check out the local church, local

Methodist church, it was just down the road. I just went to keep her company. And the minister said to me, would

I like to come back to his house? There was a youth meeting there that night on a Sunday. And he said, there'd be people your own age.

I was 18, as I say. And I said, yep, no problem. I pulled up to that meeting in my sports car and with a bit of money in my pocket with the career.

And I was in the in crowd. These people weren't. And yet when I walked into the room that evening and when

I heard these young people talk about Jesus Christ and when I heard them pray, there was a joy and a reality they had that I did not have.

And so there was first that witness from the Christian community, if you like. And then

I heard the minister unpack from the Bible, what is the gospel? And I realized that, you know,

I've been created by God for God. And ever since the fall of man, all men have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and therefore sit under his judgment.

And I realized that because of his great grace alone, through the life, death and resurrection of the

Lord Jesus Christ and through repentance and faith in him alone, he could save me.

And so I realized that my biggest need wasn't the approval of the crowd on Saturday, but it was to be in a right relationship with the living

God. And by his grace, he provided that through Christ. And I was granted repentance and faith.

And I believed upon Christ after a few weeks of going there and I was saved. So I was then 18, a young professional footballer, just on the edge of breaking into the first team.

And I told the lads, you know, literally the next week, they find out what you're doing at the weekend.

You live with a bunch of men for 10 months of the year. And I said, I've become a Christian. And it was amazing.

I was met with a little bit of laughter and mockery. And then there's some seriousness as they watched to see if my walk matched my talk.

And I had some amazing opportunities over the years to witness to men you would never think would ask about Christ and the gospel.

Wow. Praise God. Now, when was it in your walk with Christ that you came to discover and embrace reform theology?

That would have been, I want to say now, probably 20, almost 20 years ago.

I was going on a vacation and I just wanted a couple of podcasts to download for the plane ride.

And I went online and I just downloaded a couple of sermons by a guy called John Piper.

And I was sitting on the plane. And the first thing that struck me was I've never heard preaching like it was electric.

The second thing was that the substance of what he was saying and that the way that he was talking about the sovereignty of God.

And then the third thing is one of the sermons was on actually on biblical manhood and womanhood.

And that gripped me as well as I was seeing the declension in the in the culture around and in the church on those particular issues.

And so after that, I got hold of his book Desiring God. And then that was a paradigm shift for me.

A real introduction as Piper really breathe a new life, as it were, into the doctrines of grace in the way that he unpacks them in that book.

And so from then I was gripped. And, you know, I always say to people, you know, we're not born lovers of God's sovereignty.

We're born lovers of our own sovereignty. But when he breaks through those paradigms, the whole Bible burst open.

And it did really. And it was John Piper's preaching and desiring God that that was instrumental in that.

Well, praise God. And did you have any negative feedback from Christians who you knew and loved and worshipped with when you became reformed?

Were there any non reformed Christians that reacted in a negative way? Not immediately, but as time went on and as my own,

I think, articulation of doctrine grew, as I started then to, as the

Lord called me into ministry, then I've had more discussions with with folk that would hold an

Arminian perspective on those doctrines. And and yet it's one of those opportunities that you you just want to bring to people, let the scripture speak for themselves.

You have to be able to articulate it, of course. But it's only God that can, as I say, change thinking and change paradigms.

And but once that happens, it's spiritual gold and it's food for the soul. That the

Lord has loved me and chosen me in Christ before the foundation of the world is pastoral gold, because if he's loved me since then, he's not going to stop loving me next week when

I stumble or when the circumstances around me go bad. Or if there's that diagnosis that that isn't good from the doctor.

He's always loved me in Christ. And and so that keeps me strong in my faith.

And so, yeah, I found that over the years I've had some really good conversations with folks.

And then, of course, there are some that, you know, would want to be a little bit more antagonistic in their encounter with you.

Well, our aforementioned listener, Ted, from Moundville, Alabama, has a follow up question.

I'm wondering if Pastor Peacock could offer his assessment of Alberta's new premier,

Daniel Smith. I'm sorry. Given the low marks assigned to the former premier, especially regarding his management of the covid crisis as it relates to worship and Christian congregations.

I'm curious if he and other pastors have any higher hopes for her administration. Well, I'm not a great politician, obviously.

We've all become a little bit more politically minded, I think, in the last couple of years. Jason Kenney, I think, was trying to do the right thing, especially early on, but probably caved to pressure on him.

This premier has come in and made some initial good noises, if you like.

And but I think with her again, it's going to be time will tell. Time will tell.

And as other pressures coming around for her to put pressure on the church, for instance, the conversion therapy bill could have real pressure on the church in terms of we could be coming under fire for literally preaching

Christian sanctification and Christian sexuality. And now what what position will she take on churches then?

So I think, you know, we might be hopeful, but ultimately we don't hope in politics.

We hope in Christ that we're concerned, obviously, for justice and we pray for those in authority over us.

We know that Christ is building his church. The gates of hell will not prevail. And it's the gospel alone that can change people's hearts and bring people into the kingdom.

And that's why we keep the gospel front and centre in our church. And that's what we gather around is

Christ and his gospel, not political opinions of political persuasions, even though we're not ignoring them.

And we know that there is a relationship that we need to work out as those who are in the world and of the world.

Well, guess what, Ted? You have won by virtue of your question today, a free copy of the book

A Greater Glory from Pitch to Pulpit by our guest, Gavin Peacock, published by Christian Focus Publications.

Please be patient in getting this book in the mail because the books have not yet arrived to me from Christian Focus Publications.

But I can assure you they are on their way because they routinely provide us with books to give away.

So we thank you for your excellent question, or should I say questions plural, and make sure we have your full mailing address.

And Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com will ship that out to you at no charge to you or to us.

And by the way, if you want to find out more about the book while you're waiting for it, you can go to christianfocus .com, christianfocus .com,

and look up A Greater Glory by Gavin Peacock. We're going to go to our first commercial break right now.

If you have a question, there are a couple of people already waiting, but if you want to get in line and have your question asked and answered on the air by Gavin Peacock, send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state and country of residence.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Gavin Peacock and in our discussion on A Greater Glory from Pitch to Pulpit, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Royaldiadem .com. We're now back with Gavin Peacock, a former

Premier League footballer in the U .K., pro soccer player for you Americans who don't know what that means.

And he turned associate pastor, now ministering at Calgary Grace Church of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

We are discussing his book, A Greater Glory from Pitch to Pulpit. Just before we go into our conversation,

I was reminded when you mentioned the late Pele earlier, there was a high school classmate of mine,

Frank Santos. I can see Frank in my mind as clearly as when

I knew him. Even though it was a very integrated school, he was one of the only kids in the school with a very large afro, and yet he was not black.

He was a white Brazilian, and his face was lighter skin than mine, and his afro was bright orange,

I remember. But his family was very close to Pele, and I think they had some involvement in the actual team, the

New York Cosmos. I don't know if they part -owned it, or there was some very close connection they had, because they were very close with Pele.

Pele would visit their home for meals, and so they knew him very well. They weren't just your average fans, especially being

Brazilians, where Pele was from. But we'd like to enter into now some of the major focuses of your book,

A Greater Glory from Pitch to Pulpit. That whole concept of being a regenerate

Bible -believing Christian in a sport that is extremely popular everywhere else in the

United States, globally the most popular sport in the world, perhaps. Tell us about some of the unique experiences and challenges you had since you became a

Christian as a very young man. I think you said you were 18. Tell us more about some of those situations

God in his sovereign providence placed you in as a footballer. Well, if I can just say up front,

Chris, that my book, my biography, it's a sports biography, but it's more than that.

It's a story of all of life, of the complexities of life, set against the backdrop of the beautiful game, but with the light of my

Christian faith upon it. And so it's a story about family and marriage and fatherhood and suffering and disability, life, death, career, winning, losing.

And so I deal with these issues of life that everyone deals with. And it's just a story of an ordinary man saved by God's grace who was in an extraordinary job for a little bit of time there.

And so it really is the greater glory is there's a greater glory in life and football fame and fortune.

There's a greater glory to be had in knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior.

And so that was the idea of the book. So it's actually anyone can read it. And there'll be names in there that some

American sports fans wouldn't necessarily know.

But I've painted a picture of characters so that it makes a particular point. Obviously, if I mention it,

David Beckham, who I played against, they'll know who I mean. But I talk about playing for Chelsea, playing for Newcastle United, some of the dressing room things that happened there.

And so people will be able to relate to many different levels. It should be an encouragement to Christians.

And hopefully there's some wisdom there for Christian living. And it's evangelistic.

So it presents the nonbeliever with the gospel, with the whole of life under a biblical worldview.

And so when I became a Christian, people often ask me, was it difficult being a

Christian and a professional footballer, a pro athlete? And my first answer is that it's difficult being a

Christian in any walk of life. You're fighting against the world, the flesh and the devil.

Right. So we all experience difficulties. There are various trials for all of us in life.

We shouldn't be surprised at the fiery trial and that through many tribulations we'll enter the kingdom of God.

So in that sense, it's the same for everyone. Probably the particular differences with professional sport is that you are living out your faith in a very public arena.

And so if you're open about your faith, as I was, the rest of the team and the club with all the backroom staff and everyone know the press know, the media know.

And so therefore, if you're known as a Christian athlete, your faith comes under scrutiny, maybe in a way that it doesn't, even though everyone, people are always watching

Christians, if you do make it known in a magnified way, in the ways it wouldn't do maybe if you had a regular office job as such.

That would be one difference and one particular pressure. Another is that you live out massive highs and massive lows in a very short space of time.

Again, we all go through big highs and big lows in life. But in professional football, you can be the headlines on the

Saturday as the hero and you could be the villain by the Tuesday, the next game and the crowd is banging for your blood and maybe you're out the team and you've had an injury and you can be at your lowest in a very quick, quick space of time.

So those would be two particular difficulties of being a

Christian and a professional athlete in the public eye that I particularly experience.

But the privilege is that you're actually in as a Christian into a world that is very anti God.

And yet you have then a particular door, a particular key to open to connect with those folks by obviously the way you live your life, but also it has to be the gospel that you do speak at the appropriate times.

And so then again, for every Christian who's listening, what is your particular sphere that you're in, that God's given you a particular key to, that you can live that out for the glory of God?

And so that would that would be another aspect of the job that I found for that short space of time as a footballer, using it for God's glory.

Now, you were, again, a young man when you became a

Christian and you were already at 18, a professional soccer player. And I'm assuming at that age, although it's not guaranteed that a young person of that age is single,

I'm assuming that you had not yet gotten married. And with the prestige and fame and popularity of the sport in which you played, especially in the

UK, what was it like resisting the temptation of women that I'm assuming were approaching you romantically?

And also perhaps even the mockery you received from fellow players for not giving in to those invitations.

It's kind of ironic how even very conservative Bible -believing Christians, before they are married, are sometimes mocked and slandered and accused of being homosexuals by those that are not believers, because you're not giving in to frequent fornication and so on.

So there is an irony there. But how did you respond to both of those situations?

Well, I think, firstly, to help me walk in purity, it was important that I was in a good church, that I developed somewhat of a vibrant devotional life, and that I also had good men around me, good older Christian men who were speaking to my life.

So that was my safeguards, as well as that kind of fuel to fuel me on the road to keeping pure for Christ.

It wasn't long after I got saved that I actually met my wife -to -be. And the story of it is that probably,

I want to say six months after I was saved, so just a new Christian, I was studying at night school in southeast

London. I chose to study history. It was actually Reformation history,

Henry VIII and all of that time. And the first night of classes, this young woman walked in.

The only seat available was opposite me at the table. And I thought,

I like this girl's smile. I'm going to chat with her at the break. And Amanda was her name.

So I got chatting to her and she said, oh, what do you do then for a living? And I thought, well, I've got this in the bag, right?

Girls are going to love it. Slam dunk, right?

So I said, oh, I'm a professional footballer. And she said, oh, I don't really like football at all.

And so that was the Lord humbling me straight away. But she was very interested when

I started talking more and told her I was Christian, because, you know, I was just very open. And Amanda at the time, she wasn't a

Christian. And she but she was quite interested and she'd been looking at other religions. And so she

I got her to come along to my church and to the youth meeting afterwards. And after a couple of months,

Amanda was saved. And then there was this friendship in amongst the other young people of the church, which then developed into me asking to date her.

And we within, I think, three months of dating, we were engaged. And within another eight months, we were we were married, married in 1989.

And we've been married now. We'll be coming up 34 years this year. Praise God.

God, you God really rescued you big time as a young man by leading your wife pretty quickly to you.

Yeah, indeed. Yeah. Bring my wife to me quickly. This is good. I mean, even in in secular thinking from from soccer coaches, they would always like to see those young the young guys settle down early and be married.

And then you've got a home life and you've got responsibilities. It settles a young man down was that was the theory.

But certainly having the responsibility of a wife and a home and someone

I was going back to was was a good thing. And of course, we're only young Christians working out our faith and learning how to live as husband and wife in the roles that we're assigned.

But but it was good at the same time, just because, you know, you're married. It does not make you immune to sexual immorality and married or or unmarried.

We need to be pursuing Christ first and walking in yoke with him. Amen. We have

Grady, one of our most loyal and faithful and generous supporters. Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina.

Greetings, brothers. I quit watching sports about five years ago as I watched them become more politically correct.

Recently, we had a hockey player verbally attacked because he refused to celebrate a gay pride celebration because of his faith.

Is this happening in football in parentheses soccer also?

Yes. He's speaking about the Russian born player for the

Philadelphia Flyers. Right.

Yeah, I've it's a it's a great observation. And it's true to say that it's happened increasingly.

So I didn't experience it in my career, but now

I would experience it. So, for instance, you know, I have a Twitter feed and I'm I'm very clear and open on the views of the gospel, on views of biblical sexuality.

I think if I was a professional footballer now in the

Premier League, I would come under fire from the club, the team that I represented to pull some of my comments.

And then the question has to be asked, you know, could I in God's conscience do that?

I couldn't do that. There's this thing, Rainbow Laces in the UK with the Premier League teams,

I think for one or two weeks a year wearing these rainbow laces in support of these gay pride.

And so I but I couldn't do that in all conscience. I could not do that. Now, would I then be able to be a professional footballer and hold on the

Christian in this day and age? I don't know, because the issue at hand is freedom of speech and freedom of religion. We've even seen, you know, the ones that you mentioned there.

But then we've seen the likes of Israel Folau and Billy Vinopola, polar rugby players who one lost their job in the international team playing for the international team for literally tweeting

First Corinthians six. The other thing is, you know, the Black Lives Matter thing.

You see the teams, even the England team, England national team taking the knee even at the even at the

World Cup. And so they're just blending football with politics.

And some of these guys don't even know the origins of Black Lives Matter. But they just think it's anti racism is a good thing to do.

And of course, all of us would be against racism as Christians. But we're not. If we understand what

Black Lives Matter is, you're not going to be supporting hashtag Black Lives Matter because of its

Marxist roots. And it's very destructive ideology. In fact, they are racist. They're just against a different race or should

I say people of a different skin color and heterosexuals. Indeed.

Thank you, Grady. You have also won a free copy of the book we are discussing by Gavin Peacock.

A greater glory from pitch to pulpit. Thanks to our friends at Christian Focus Publications, who have given us a limited number of copies for listeners who submit questions.

And that will be shipped out to you by our friends at CVBBS dot com.

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at no charge to you or to us. Make sure we have your full mailing address.

We're going to our midway break right now. Please be patient with us as this break is longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, who airs this program is compelled by the FCC to use our middle break to air their own public service announcements and other local things to localize geographically this program to Lake City, Florida.

That's a FCC requirement. While they do that, we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

Please use this time wisely. Respond to as many of our advertisers as you can, at least to thank them for sponsoring the show, because we cannot exist without our advertisers, the funding from our advertisers.

And send in your questions to Gavin Peacock, to Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com. Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com.

As always, give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence. We'll be right back. Don't go away. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend, Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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On a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

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Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio has had a long -time partnership with our friends at CVBBS which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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Before I return to Gavin Peacock and our discussion of his book, A Greater Glory, From Pitch to Pulpit, which is the story of a

Premier League footballer in the UK, otherwise known as a professional soccer player, turned associate pastor at Calvary Grace Church of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Before we return to that conversation, I just have a couple of very important announcements to make.

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Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like Calvary Grace Church of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically solid churches and I may be able to help you find a church just as I have done with many people in the

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That may be you too if you are without a biblically solid church home. Send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com

and put I Need a Church in the subject line. Last but not least, I want you to mark on your calendar if it is at all possible for you to attend a conference in Milton, Florida, March 3rd through the 5th,

I strongly recommend that you attend the First Love Ministries first annual

Bible conference on the theme, Examining the New Birth. My friend

Joe Jakowicz who is the founder and president of First Love Ministries and First Love Radio which actually live streams this program and many other faithful, wonderful programs.

He is one of the key speakers and there are many more. I strongly urge you to look up the information at firstloveministries .org

firstloveministries .org and you will find all of the details that you need to register for this conference

March 3rd through the 5th in Milton, Florida. Now, if you have any questions for our guest today,

Gavin Peacock, send them to chrisarnsen at gmail .com chrisarnsen at gmail .com

give us a first name, at least city and state and country of residence. Before I go to any listener questions,

I just want to say something to a previous questioner, Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina who asked the question about the

Philadelphia Flyers hockey player who refused to wear any rainbow paraphernalia on his jersey or on his hockey stick due to his faith as a

Russian Orthodox. He is a native -born Russian and he refused to wear these things.

I heard a brilliant analysis several months ago by the renowned sports commentator

Jason Whitlock who also professes to be a Christian and is a conservative.

He, in his opinion, the homosexual activists have infiltrated the whole industry of professional sports for one reason, or one of the reasons is because sports is one of the very few areas of life in the media where people, for the most part, predominantly watch the games and the events live and therefore they are a captive audience and can't fast forward through the commercials, which very often involve homosexual themes or the activities that take place in halftimes and during the breaks between periods depending upon what sport you're watching.

And therefore, since they can't fast forward since they are captive and the events are live and it's one of the few areas in the media that continues to be live that is one of the main reasons he believes they have infiltrated the sport.

I thought that was a great insight. I don't know if you have any comments on that, Gavin, or any thoughts on that.

Oh, I completely agree. Absolutely. In the devil's schemes of things he's going to exploit whatever the best opportunities are.

Of course, you look at Hollywood and the movies, you think of the music industry and then sport.

And of course, sport, increasingly so, with the media coverage, has become a god for many people.

And so you will get a big audience. And so take the World Cup, for instance, and take the idea of taking the knee or the one -love armbands, all again to do with the gay pride.

People are watching that and it's a way to promote an agenda for sure.

Amen. Thank you. We have an anonymous listener. And this anonymous listener says,

My heart is broken over my son who is in grammar school because he is very ineffective and unskilled in sports, no matter what sport he may choose to be involved in.

He is far too passive. He doesn't have enough aggression or a competitive spirit.

How do I, in your counsel, help to make him more of an effective athlete because he seems to want to still try being a successful athlete at his young age without importing into him non -Christian values?

I know that there's nothing non -Christian about being competitive in its right frame of mind, but at the same time, obviously, there are people that cross the line into sin with their machismo and their view of acceptable violence that is not even necessary depending upon the sport that you're in.

Do you have any questions on how to create in my son a drive to be this better competitive athlete without sinning?

That's a good question, a difficult one to answer not knowing the fullness of the situation.

The first and best thing is to teach your son and lead your son to come to Christ and to take his identity from Jesus Christ alone.

And then if, by God's grace, he's come to Christ, then he can live out what it means to then be a

Christian young man. And that then roots him in the fact that he is not the sum of his performance on the athletics field.

It lies in Christ alone. That frees him then to enjoy sport for what it is.

And that he can have a proper and right view of fitness, that his body is a temple of the

Holy Spirit. There is some value in some physical training and a certain level.

A young man should have some strength. It doesn't mean that everyone's got to have a six -pack and be a great weightlifter, but that he should use his body and make it strong.

And then I think it's probably then finding maybe to help him find a particular sport that he might excel at more than others and guide him into that.

And usually, you know, there's levels as well. I mean, at my school, when

I went to school, you know, you had the A team, the B team, the C team. You had levels. So you could find a level that most could play at.

And even if that's not the case at school, outside of school, in rec soccer, for instance, or rec hockey, whatever, you can usually find a level where a young person can play at and enjoy it.

And then once he gets a bit of confidence at one level, you see then if he can progress to the next whilst not making sport the

God, but using it to teach valuable lessons and to get some physical fitness.

I think those are the things. And certainly recognizing that we can definitely shape young men to have what is the characteristics of biblical manhood, to have that, you know, dominion -taking attitude whilst not being macho, that machismo.

The biblical manhood, being a Christian young man, it's not about being macho. It's about being mature, being mature in Christ and taking responsibility and taking initiative.

And I think when a young man gets gripped by Christ, then he takes on increasingly

Christ -like character and that will have the appropriate amount of, if you like, aggression or an activity that he embarks in.

Amen. And would you recommend immediately, while I was reading that, what popped into my head was it might be an interesting thing to do.

Obviously, you read the Bible with your son and you bring your son to church and you even have your son speak with elders in the church.

But one of the things that popped into my head, it might be interesting to watch Chariots of Fire with your son.

That's one of the most powerful Christian films ever created, ever to be seen in the cinema, in my opinion.

And it wasn't even created by Christians, to my knowledge. But the whole story of Eric Liddell, or Liddell, and his running for the glory of God, wouldn't that, if one is keeping in focus that they are using whatever skill and talent and ability and action that they are involved in, they're doing it to their utmost and to the utmost of skill of which they are capable for the glory of God, rather than for their own glory, for the shame and ridicule of opponents that you want to lose, and all these other factors.

If you're doing it for the glory of God and really come to the fullness of truth, be doing that while you're playing, wouldn't that possibly be a boost to whatever this child is going through?

Yeah, that's very helpful. And, I mean, you wonder, you don't think they'd make a movie like that nowadays, would they?

With the clearly Christian theme in there. Especially since his rival was Jewish. I mean, people would immediately say that's an anti -Semitic film.

Exactly. Remarkable movie. But as you say, one of the greats, and one of my heroes of the faith is

Eric Liddell. In my book, A Greater Glory, I do have a passage where I talk about Liddell. And I talk about what he did in terms of his stand of not competing on a

Sunday, which affected him in the Olympics in Paris back in the 1930s, and how the

Lord opened a way for him to run in another event that didn't involve heats on a Sunday, and how he won.

An event that he was not particularly skilled in. No, it wasn't his best event.

The Lord equipped him for his glory. And there's a line in the film which Liddell speaks, apparently attributed to Liddell, where he's speaking to his sister

Jenny. Of course, Liddell dies. He goes off as a missionary to China and actually dies in a prisoner of war camp.

But he's talking to his sister Jenny about the Olympics and about having to compete in the

Olympics first. And Jenny says, God made me for a purpose, and that purpose was

China. But he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.

Amen. And I use that as an illustration in the way that the

Lord helped me to see my sport, that he made me for himself as a Christian man and that I was going to go into Christian ministry.

But he also made me a decent footballer, and that for a time. And when I played well, using the skills and ability

I had for the glory of God, there was a feeling of God's own pleasure in his own creation, i .e.

being yourself, that rebounds to you. And so then any young person can enjoy sport for what it is, a gift of God, and play it to the glory of God.

And that's where you'll get your real joy from. It might be helpful for us to do a comparison between two words, one of which you used.

Actually, you used both of them. If you could compare and contrast machismo with biblical masculinity, because there are many people that wrongly think that machismo is the ideal persona of a truly masculine man, and yet machismo often involves things that under the surface, things that are not quite readily seen, but under the surface very often involve cowardice, they involve a lack of self -confidence, even though the opposite mindset is glaring from the outward activity and words of the person that could be labeled macho.

There are often bullies, and bullies is an act of cowardice because you're typically picking on somebody that you know is far weaker than yourself.

But if you could compare and contrast machismo with masculinity, because I think it would be helpful from a former professional athlete for people to hear that.

And I've seen that in the dressing room, of course. You see the machismo, and then you see what is not biblical manhood, but maybe some echoes of what true manhood is as well.

So I've seen the best of manhood and the worst of manhood in my sport and my time as a professional footballer.

But I think you've basically outlined that idea of machismo that can be either very brash or cowardly.

It could be a bully or someone who is actually manipulating someone else, particularly women, by a certain passivity and not taking responsibility.

Whereas biblical masculinity, true masculinity, is about a loving, sacrificial sense of responsibility before God to provide and protect women in particular, and children, spiritually and physically.

It's that written -on DNA of your soul to do that. Now it's outlined very specifically in the home as the husband is the head of the wife, and that looks like love, and it looks like the love that Christ has for the church in giving himself up for her, to wash her with the word and to nourish and cherish her.

It's outlined in terms of a masculine headship in the church in 1 Timothy 2, and that called for biblically qualified men alone to be elders and function as pastors in the church, even the qualification for an elder one being that he must manage his own household well.

But that masculinity isn't just for the home and the church. It extends to all of life because it's a creation order thing, so that you are a man all of the time, and you're a woman all of the time, in all spheres of life.

And so you can have a sense of that responsibility of sacrifice and love in terms of protection and provision.

And I always say to people if I'm speaking to a mixed audience at a church,

I say, you know, it goes beyond the home and the church, not that all women submit to all men, but I can guarantee if there's a mixed audience in the church and a government were to come in that back of the church within the next 30 seconds, it would be the men of the church that would be on him before the women.

They wouldn't be throwing the women out in front of them because it's written on the DNA of your soul, that responsibility, that sacrifice.

And that's the difference between that and machismo. Machismo is about self.

Biblical true masculinity gets down low to lift others up and ultimately points to the

Christ who came down low to lift others up through salvation. Amen. And you will typically never find a person who could be rightly labeled as macho.

You could rarely find any of them who has the courage and masculinity to speak and behave in ways that are unpopular.

They will typically be involved in as much fornication as they possibly can, discarding women like they are garbage rather than protecting women.

Not only protecting them physically and trying to keep them pure and keeping their reputations intact, but even protecting them from themselves.

And whereas the true masculine Christian is going to have the courage and the masculinity to resist the popular trends of society that offend

God, and he will even remain sexually pure before he is married, and of course while he is married, by not committing adultery, and doing things that are viewed by many in the secular society as being anything but masculine.

They view that as softness. They view that as somebody who's afraid of sex and all these other ridiculous things that are hurled at Christians.

And it's quite obvious that evangelical Christians often have the largest households among the secular society, so they're obviously very often having healthy sexual activity within the bonds of marriage.

But anyway, just a thought, and I think that those things are too often blurred.

In fact, it is obvious that there are still people who are born again, or at least professing to be, who wrongly view machismo as the ideal in the

Christian manhood. You still have Christian women who want the bad boy, and you still have

Christian men perhaps who want to be the bad boy, at least Christian in their profession, and these are things to obviously be made clear as far as obedience to Christ, how wrong those people are.

We have Joseph in south -central Pennsylvania. I think he brings up a very important question.

Since you brought up Eric Little, I was wondering what your views are in regard to the

Sabbath. I know that even amongst Reformed Christians there are disagreements, and I was wondering how that came into play, no pun intended, when it came to your being a professional soccer player.

Did you play as a Christian on Sunday? And how do you respond to the fact that there are many

Christian families who have their children involved in sports, in school, all the way from pre -K through college, who routinely do not worship on Sunday because they are busy either playing in a game or involved in practice?

Well, firstly, I'm not a Sabbatarian in the sense that I wouldn't work on a

Sunday or compete on a Sunday. I believe that Christ has fulfilled the Sabbath, and Christ is our

Sabbath rest, if you like. I do believe, though, that every day is the

Lord's Day, but Sunday is that special particular day of gathering with the Lord's people and hearing the preached word and being edified and edifying one another.

With regards to then my own career, so then it wasn't a problem to then play on a

Sunday, but for me, it happened now and again because Sunday football was just coming in as the media was starting to get a grip in the 1990s, and so it wasn't every week.

It was just now and then, and so I could even make an evening service often if I didn't make the morning service if I played, and it wasn't disruptive of church life.

Nowadays, for professional footballers, certainly in the Premier League season, and I would say probably across most of the leagues in Europe, there are a lot of Sunday games.

So then if you're a Christian, how much of your church life will you be missing?

And that then can become a bit of an issue. Then moving on to the family thing, there is an issue.

So I'm not a sabbaterian, but the fact that when we started opening shops on Sundays and Sunday sport, it has done massive damage to the

Christian home, I would say, or the home in general, family in general, and to the church because parents, and it is where the parents must take responsibility, have actually put their kids, so here in Canada, hockey season starts, and you see a lot of Christian parents actually disappearing with their kids for weeks on end.

And so what are they saying then? Well, they're saying, number one, that hockey is more important than Christ, and they're actually saying to their kids also, number two, that their kids are more important to them than Christ because they'd rather put their kid in a sport that they like, and what if they could make it to the top level, and that's more important than Christ.

So really as parents, then you've got to take responsibility, you've got to think very, very carefully about what sports you put your kids into and when they're playing.

With our son, Jake, there was a decision to be made early on, especially living in England, was he going to play football?

And so we didn't want him playing Sunday football, and we found a Saturday team he could play for.

It turned out he wasn't going to be good enough to be a professional anyway, but he ended up going into martial arts and he's now a professional

Muay Thai fighter. Oh, wow. He's number one in Canada, actually. Wow.

He owns his own gym here in Calgary. But we wanted to model that we love

Christ first. Christ is most valuable to us, and then he sees what's most valuable to his parents, then it doesn't guarantee he's going to become a

Christian, but you're keeping him within the sphere of the means of grace that God has given to children in Christian homes.

And by God's grace, he's a professing believer in our church today. So it really is a parental responsibility.

I don't envy parents because it's a difficult one, but if you seek to honour

Christ first, seek his kingdom first, and for the lives of your children, he will give you the wisdom and open the doors for you to find the right outlets for your kids in sport whilst not compromising church on a

Sunday. Praise God. And you said it very quickly, so I didn't recognize the martial art in which your son is a champion.

What is it? It's Muay Thai. Muay Thai. It's obviously rooted in Thailand, the art of eight limbs.

A lot of people would look at it and say it looks a bit like kickboxing, but it's slightly different.

And again, I talk about Jake, my son, and my daughter, Ava, in the book, and Jake was actually born with one hand.

Wow. And so that's where we, in the book, talk about suffering and disability, and it was at the height of my career as just getting promotion to the

Premier League with Newcastle, and then Jake was born and was a complete shocker. And then how we dealt with that as young Christian parents and how the

Lord provided for us and how amazing, as a young dad, you look at your son, he's born with one hand, and you think, will he be able to do everything physically?

And Jake ends up being the champion of Canada in a sport you think you need two hands for, and obviously he's beaten men with hands and the

Lord has, most importantly, saved him. So yeah, that's an important part, even as we think of parenting and even disability and suffering in our lives and how we cope as mothers and fathers with that suffering in our children's lives with a firm view of the sovereignty of God in mind.

Well, I already know that I would love to interview your son as well, if you want to put a bug in his ear.

I don't know if you use that phrase in the UK or Canada, but if you want to mention to him that I would love to interview him on his whole overcoming the disability that he had to become a champion in martial arts,

I think that's quite incredible, and especially since he's a Christian. Yeah, absolutely.

Jake would, I'm sure, be glad. I won't speak for him, but I'm pretty sure he'd be glad to talk to you. I think it is an inspiration for folks, and I think as well,

Jake has been able to speak to young people a lot who are so obsessed with body identity and body and taking their identities from having a good body or being pretty or being the, you know, as we talked about, macho and the great, you know, muscly guy or whatever, and he can talk about his own experience of that, even as a young teenager, before the

Lord saved him, and how he was taking his identity from being physically as much as he could be, and then the

Lord saved him. Now his identity is in Christ alone, which is kind of what I was saying for the person who wrote in or called in.

Identity in Christ alone, he isn't the sum of his performance. He isn't what his body says, and out of that, then, he can be the best that he can be with the gifts that he's given.

Amen. Well, I would love to not only interview him, but perhaps even have a co -host with me or two that are pastors who are very much involved in martial arts themselves.

One immediately comes to mind, my friend Keith Foskey of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida. He actually runs martial arts classes, and I think he does it for free, but I would love to have that arranged, and of course,

I would love to have Voddy Balkam on, who I'm sure you are aware is an accomplished martial arts...

Brazilian jiu -jitsu. Yeah. So Voddy came and stayed with me for a couple of years ago, maybe two or three years ago now, and he went to Jake's gym, and Jake put him through his paces there.

Wow. Voddy was breathing heavy for sure. Ah! Big guy,

Voddy Balkam. And I don't know if you know my friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, but his son,

Josh, is an accomplished Krav Maga martial artist to the

Israeli martial art. Wow. But we have to go to our final break right now. It's going to be a lot more brief than the other breaks.

If you have a question, send it in right now because we're rapidly running out of time. chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com

Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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That's PTLBibleRebinding .com We do have Christopher in Western Suffolk County, Long Island, New York who has a question for you,

Gavin. He says, I know that you're not a prophet but I wonder what you think of the future of professional sports with all the increasing demands being made by feminists, homosexuals and transgendered activists.

Well, I think that sport will be one area where we'll just see it implode and it will not work and what

I'm seeing with unbelievers is they're actually looking and saying it's not right that a man can identify as a woman and compete in the women's swimming, for instance.

It's not right. It doesn't fit. It doesn't make sense and there's a sense even in God's common grace because he's made us this way to fit together this way for human flourishing that people are starting to say now even as unbelievers, this is not right and in the end,

I think we'll see an implosion and then a backlash and I think we'll see a reverting to what men's and women's sports and keeping it as it is.

We've even seen Nicola Sturgeon, the leader in Scotland, reverse her own opinions on transgender, men identifying as women, being allowed in women's prisons.

She's actually reversed her decision on that because of the public backlash. Well, I want to remind all of our anonymous listeners who sent in questions.

If you send me an email with your full name and mailing address, you have all won a free copy of the book we are addressing,

A Greater Glory From Pitch to Pulpit by my guest today, Gavin Peacock and that is because of the generosity and kindness of Christian Focus Publications and also the kindness and generosity of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com

who ship all of our winners their free Bibles and books that they win by submitting questions at no charge to our audience and no charge to us either.

So we thank both Christian Focus Publications and Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com.

I'd like to allow you to have the last few minutes of the show uninterrupted where you can have etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners what you most want to remain there in their hearts and minds when they leave the program today.

Well, we've discussed many different things in relation to my book and I think that what

I want people to be left with is the sense of a great need for salvation in the

Lord Jesus Christ and the great hope that you can have in coming to Christ in faith.

We've talked about, you know, God's word, God's design, about manhood, for instance.

You can't circumvent the cross of Christ to get to biblical manhood.

He is the proverbial man and he is the second Adam who is the only saviour for anyone.

That's what my book points to. That's what we should, as Christians, be like arrows in pointing towards.

And, you know, I just, I want people to be left with the words of Jesus himself who said, come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

And he is the one who knows all of our burdens that we have, the failures, the sense of shame, the sins that we carry, the pressures of life even.

He knows them all and he is the one that can take them from us as we yoke ourselves to him and follow him and that is the true and good way.

And so that's what I want people to be left with, the invitation to come to Christ himself. Amen, and we have time for one last question.

We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who asks, are you available to travel to the

U .S. for speaking engagements, especially to men's groups and to events where young men are in the audience predominantly?

The answer to that is yes, I travel regularly, globally, and particularly to the

States. I've got three conferences coming up in North Carolina and Florida and Indianapolis in the next couple of months and I'll do conferences on biblical manhood or marriage or sexuality.

All of these particular issues is something I do do. Is your itinerary on your website, on your church website?

It's actually not on my website, but people can contact me through my website or through my

Twitter feed. There's a direct contact email address there on my Twitter feed information, which is gpeacock, the

G and the P are capitals, gpeacock8. That's it, at gpeacock8 is my

Twitter. And the website for the church where our guest is associate pastor, calvarygrace .ca.

Calvary with a V as in victory, grace .ca. And don't forget, if you are interested in, if you didn't win the book today or if you want to purchase the book, even if you won it and you want to give out copies to other people, christianfocus .com,

christianfocus .com. And you can purchase it here in the United States at cvbbs .com, cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs .com.

Thank you so much, Gavin Peacock. Thank everybody for listening. Hope you have a safe and happy and joyful and Christ -honoring weekend and Lord's Day.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.