The Greatest Prize

When Derwin Gray was drafted into the National Football League, all of a sudden he started hearing from people, important people in his life, who wanted something from him. My dad was not involved in my life, and so I held that against him. And I remember one time I saw him and the first thing he said was, I need a truck. And I was like, well, I need a dad. And so that was incredibly painful. But without Christ, you don't really know what to do with that pain.

And so you think you can bury your pain, but in reality, your pain ends up burying you. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com.

It takes something remarkable, something supernatural for us to be able to respond rightly to people who have hurt us deeply. We're going to talk more about that today with Derwin Gray. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. I guess this is appropriate that in the week after the big game, we would have a couple of football players. I guess I should say the couple of football players here, right? Don't say that, Bob. It's been too long. You were an NFL chaplain for 33 years, but you did play college ball, Ball State, in the Hall of Fame at Ball State, right? Okay, Bob.

Are we done with this part? He's very famous, Bob. And we have here today a guy who was in the league for five years? Six years. Don't steal a year from me, Bob.

That's pension right there, baby. Derwin Gray joining us on Family Life Today. And I guess since the game was last night, we're probably going to talk football a little bit today, don't you, man? Let's talk football. Why not? How's everybody feeling? You guys doing okay with this?

Ate too much. That's what the game's all about, isn't it? It's about the wings and everything else you got going on. Make sure I didn't flush the toilet at halftime, because that's a plumbing problem.

Did you know that? It really is. But here's the real important thing, is why are you in the Ball State Hall of Fame? Like, what did you do to accomplish that?

You're going back to that. Bro, I don't know about for you, but the older I get and the further away I get from my college and NFL career, the more impressed I am with it. Because when you're in it, you don't realize it, but when you're out of it, you go, man, that was dope. Are you in the BYU Hall of Fame? I am not in the BYU Hall of Fame.

There is a giant banner of me at the stadium, which is really sweet. But so did you throw for a lot of yards or were you a quarterback? Okay, here we go. We're going to get into the stats now.

Like, what did you do? Like, give me some numbers. I don't know. Ask my wife.

I don't know the stats, but I know they're good. Here's my claim to fame. This is not what we're here to talk about today. I mean, I'm just impressed. I mean, not too many people can say I'm married to a Ball State Hall of Fame quarterback. That's right, and I say it all the time.

And he's in the high school baseball Hall of Fame. Whatever. Hey, I mean, you seen the twinkle in her eye? She was like, I got the quarterback. That's right, I did.

And she was the cheerleader, so there you go. So, listeners, let me explain. Derwin Gray, who is with us here. I thought we were interviewing Derwin.

He came in and took over. Derwin joining us on Family Life today. He's a pastor. He's an author. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. He and his wife, Vicki, have been married for... 28 years.

28 years. They met at BYU. We'll probably get into a little of that story here.

Yeah, we need to get that story. But Derwin's been with us on Family Life today. Six years in the NFL. You were with the Panthers and the Colts, right?

Yep. There's a whole team full of guys who won the game last night who are thinking, I have reached the pinnacle. I mean, I have finally achieved what I grew up dreaming I would achieve. I've reached the summit. And part of what we want to talk about today is really the theme that you've written about in a book you've written called The Good Life. You're suggesting that if you think this is the pinnacle and this is where life is found, you have climbed the wrong mountain, right?

Yeah. So let me put it to you like this. If winning the Super Bowl is awesome, I've been a part of winning some incredible games.

But if winning a ring is your greatest prize, there's always going to be an echo in your soul ringing that there's more. Because all the good things in this world is but a shadow to the greatest good. And the greatest good has a name and his name is Jesus.

And so let me explain what I'm saying with some context. So back in 2014, this is a while ago, as I was pastoring and mentoring and discipling, reaching the loss, whether they were black, white, male, female, regardless of the age, people were not happy. And so I thought, OK, what does Jesus say about happiness? And hiding in plain sight in the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher ever preached, Jesus literally tells humanity how to be happy. It's called the Beatitudes. And so Jesus is standing on a hill called the Sermon on the Mount.

That's what he's doing. He's overlooking the Sea of Galilee and his disciples are sitting at his feet and he opens up with these words. He says, blessed are the porn spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And then he describes seven other characteristics of a blessed life. And the Greek word for blessed is the word Makaros and it literally means happy. So happy are the porn spirit. Happy are those who mourn.

Happy are the humble. And so Jesus is literally laying out that the life of happiness you want is actually a life of holiness. Holiness is a theological term, and it simply means this, that when we say yes to Jesus, he brings us into his family. He separates us from darkness, moves us into the light.

And now he says, I'm going to show you how to be a child of the light. And as a result of that, you're going to take upon certain characteristics and it's going to give you a happiness that's not contingent upon happenings. It's not contingent upon circumstances. It's actually contingent upon intimacy with him, into me you see.

Then when we get to see him, we start to become like him. And now our happiness isn't rooted in, man, I lost my job or COVID-19 or political unrest or racial unrest. Our happiness now is not about getting things. It's about becoming the person we were meant to always be. You start this book by taking us on your quest for happiness and how you thought you were going to find it in athletics, right?

Yeah. And so I didn't grow up in the church. I grew up on the west side of San Antonio, Texas. We were PO. That means we couldn't afford the O and the R to be poor. But when you grow up PO, you don't even know you're PO.

That's just the way it is. And growing up in Texas, I cannot remember a moment when I did not love football. And so I came from a context and environment that at age 13, I said, I don't want to be like what I see. And I decided at that time that football was my way out of where I was at. So football has always been more than just a game like I loved it. And so in essence, it became a God because the human heart is going to worship something. That's just the way we're made.

And worship isn't that complex. It simply means this. I'm drawing affirmation, identity and mission from something or someone. Football gave me that. When I was in eighth grade, my middle school football coach told my mom that if Dewey, that's my nickname, if Dewey continues to work hard, he could get a scholarship.

My mom told me that and I said, what kind of ship is that? No, she goes, no, a scholarship. That means you can play football like the guys on TV. You could go to school. You could have a better life. And at that moment, that seed was planted in my heart. So in God's common grace, that gave me purpose and aspirations.

But like any false God, it lets you down. So people will look and say, wow, Derwin, man, you were successful. You became an All-State football player. You became an All-American in college, like you married your dream girl. My wife and I got married in college. By the way, I met her second semester my freshman year. Vicky was from a small town in Montana called Darby. I'm from the hood in San Antonio, Texas.

Both of us, non-Mormons, meet at a Mormon school. And so the first time I saw her, she was in the weight room lifting weights because she was on the track team. And she was doing triceps extensions. Now, this is before I was a Christian. You remember tricep extensions?

Oh, like it was yesterday. Were you like into the triceps or what? Yeah, totally. Because the next thought in my mind, y'all don't judge me. Don't get all judgey. I was like, look at those triceps.

We could make superior athletes together. And the next thought was, I hope she asked me for a spot. And she did.

And after she did her exercise, she skedaddled off. And then I seen her a few weeks later playing basketball. And we have been together basically ever since we've been together over 30 years, been married 28 years. And so we got married in college, which at BYU is kind of a normal thing to do. And so it wasn't weird for us to get in college. I mean, our families thought it was odd, but both of us are kind of rebellious. And so we're like, we don't care. We love each other. This is what we're going to do. End up having a great career. And then I get drafted to the NFL. That was my my heaven, my Nirvana.

That was my Mecca. That was my all in all. And my rookie year was absolutely miserable.

Vicki and I were looking at each other going, can we go back to college where we were loved? Why was it so hard? Well, it was so hard because one, I was now a little fish in a big pond.

Two, because my wife is white and I have a much better tan, I'm black. Some of my teammates, the black teammates, actually gave me a hard time and gave her a hard time. We just didn't connect well. It was an older team. I mean, I was like 21 and dudes were like 34, 35. I wasn't playing much.

And then all of a sudden there's this pressure to provide financially for family and friends who never went to see me play football in high school. You're getting calls from people saying, hey, Derwin. I'm getting calls from people that I thought was dead.

I'm like, what? Did Jesus do a resurrection? Who are you?

Where'd you come from? You know, there was a time that my dad was not involved in my life. And so I held that against him. And when you don't know Christ, you don't know how to process that pain. And I remember one time I saw him and the first thing he said was, I need a truck.

And I was like, well, I need a dad. And so that was incredibly painful. But without Christ, you don't really know what to do with that pain. And so you think you can bury your pain, but in reality, your pain ends up burying you. It's like your mom saying, clean up your room because your clothes are on the floor and you stuff them all under the bed and they get funky and stinky and they overflow out. Well, that's what pain does. It turns into bitterness and bitterness is drinking poison and hoping that the person you're mad at dies.

And so externally, it looked great. But internally, I've got people calling me a training camp. And you guys know what training camp is like as a fourth round pick.

I am fighting for my life to make the team. And I've got family members saying, you need to retire your granddad. I'm like, what do you mean? My signing bonus was a hundred thousand after taxes. That's fifty five after aging.

I'm stuck with forty five thousand bucks. What do you what are you talking about? Retiring. So anyway, that was incredibly hard from a marital perspective. I was very passive as a husband.

Vicky's very strong. And so I was cool. Like, hey, you lead the house to do whatever. I'll go.

I'll go play ball. So we got along really good, like good roommates. Second year, things got a little bit better. My first NFL start, I led the team in tackles and I was like, this is gonna be easy.

I'm the man. Then the next week we played Tampa Bay and I was like, I am not the man. Now, year three, though, that was it. I was a team captain. I found my groove. I was playing really good. But at the end of that season, it was like I had an existential crisis at twenty five.

And now I know the Holy Spirit is I'm looking in the mirror and like early February or March going. So this is as good as it gets. There has to be more because I knew one, I can't play football forever and NFL stands for not for long. And my identity was based on being a football player that opened doors, that gave me privileges. Well, who am I when I can't do do that?

So there's incredible fear. Secondly, morally, I knew there were things that were wrong. I didn't know the word sin, but I knew if I did something bad, I wanted to do some good to fix it. Thirdly, I couldn't love my wife the way she deserved to be loved. Now, as I look back, I couldn't truly love her because I didn't truly love myself. I didn't think I was worth it.

Like even now, there are times where I'll pull up the transformation church and the thoughts are going through my mind is what what Sunday are they going to figure out? I'm not worth staying for. But I grew up in a context where my mom was 17 when she had me. My dad was 19.

I love them both. But the reality is, is there was substance abuse issues or all types of issues. And so they were in and out of my life. So early on, I'm going, well, I'm not worth staying for. So football makes sense because I'm going to show you I'm worth staying for. I'm a play the best. I'm a work the hardest because in reality, what I'm saying is I'm worth staying for.

Will you love me? The problem is, is what happens when you can't do that anymore? And that's what every false God does is it says, feed me, feed me, feed me.

And it's never full. And it breaks your soul. Is that about the time the naked preacher came into your life? So the naked preacher showed up on the scene actually my rookie year. So we need to explain to everybody who the naked preacher is. Yeah. Yeah. We need to talk about the naked preacher. Do we really, Bob? Or can we just let that go? No, you need to hear the naked preacher story. Yeah.

Yeah. So, so, so, you know, God has an incredible sense of humor. I believe he smiles so much more than we recognize. But in 1993, when I was drafted by the Colts, there was a linebacker on the team. And every day he would take a shower, dry off, wrap a towel around his waist, and then he'd get his Bible and he'd go to my teammates and he'd say, do you know Jesus? And in my mind, I'd go, do you know you're half naked?

No, it was the weirdest thing because I wasn't a church kid. I don't know. Do you know Jesus?

I don't know what that means. So I asked the veterans on the team, I said, what's up with the half naked black man walking around talking about, do you know Jesus? And one of my teammates said, don't pay any attention to him. That's the naked preacher. So his real name is Steve Grant, but naked preacher was his nickname. And one day after practice, I'm sitting in my locker and I see him walking towards me and I turned my back because I didn't want nothing to do with him or his nakedness or his Jesus. And he touched me on the back and he says, rookie D Gray, do you know Jesus?

And that began this five year relationship. And so in the midst of the existential crisis, the moral crisis, the things that I'm going through in my marriage, he's embodying the gospel. He's sharing the gospel.

And one of the most powerful things, and you guys know this and for the listener, one of the most powerful things is to embody what you're proclaiming. And one day after practice, the defensive backs, because we're jokesters, we're playing around and someone threw some tape to hit another guy. And the one guy ducked and hit the naked preacher in the eye, his eye swole up, he had tears running out of his eye. And he went up to that guy and he said, if I didn't love Jesus, I would hurt you. And I was like, this man really believes this because that was grounds for beat down.

And so that even made the message stronger. And so August 2nd, 1997 is my fifth year in the NFL, Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana. I'm with the Colts. Externally, the bank account's nice. The investment portfolio's nice. My career's going nice.

Things are going nice on the outside, but this good life that I want, I don't have. And I remember walking from lunch back to my door and the best way I can describe it is there was a Grand Canyon sized chasm in my soul. So I get to the dorm room and this is in the 90s, so there's no smartphones.

The phone is actually connected to the wall. You guys remember those days? Oh, yeah. And I call Vicki on the phone and I say, I want to be committed to you and I want to be committed to Jesus. And what happened next is I felt when I was born again, I felt the love of God in Christ just wash over me. It was like for the first time in my life that I knew that I knew that I knew that I was loved and it wasn't because of my performance.

And this is what I mean. My whole life was built on this. How fast can you run? How good can you play? What plays can you make?

How can you help the team win? Okay, you're a team captain, but it's not unconditional. It has conditions.

It has strings attached. But for the first time, if you will, there was someone who looked at my 40 time, my vertical lead, my bench press, my game film called Life and said, you are not good enough. And I love you anyway.

And I am your good enough. And that's when I was infected with grace, like this idea as an athlete, everything's performance, performance, performance, status. And for the first time, it was someone saying, you are loved, not because of, but in spite of and all because of me. And that's when I came to know Christ and that began this journey of understanding that God's greatest goal for me is not to make my dreams come true.

God's greatest goal for me is to form me into the image of His Son, to love like Jesus, to think like Jesus, to forgive like Jesus, to have compassion like Jesus, to love my wife the way He loves her, to be a conduit of His love and His grace and His mercy. And what we found was this is the happiness that we thought we were going to have in a bank account, our status was actually found in a person and the ability to love and to forgive each other. I mean, one of the amazing things about that story, which I didn't think this is what was going to hit me, was Naked Preacher Man. Steve Grant, the boldness of Steve to walk over to you, even when you didn't want to hear it and tap you on the shoulder and sort of share the gospel with you is inspiring to me because so many of us live so fearfully of offending somebody or not tapping them on the shoulder. I mean, I've walked in the Lion's locker room, you know, all these decades and there are days I was afraid. Like, I want to share Christ with this linebacker tomorrow, next week, chapel Saturday night. I'm not going to, you know, you can live in this fear. And yet he had the courage to tap you on the shoulder.

You're looking at him like, dude, get out of here, put some clothes on and go home. And yet he embodied it. But the boldness that I want to say to a listener who's afraid, don't be afraid. That tap on the shoulder literally changed your life and your legacy and everything is done. Because he said, I'm going to step into an uncomfortable space and I'm going to share the gospel. Yeah.

And you know, what I would say is for him, it was not uncomfortable because of what Christ had done for him. You know, as we look at 2020 and moving into 2021, we have experienced a pandemic of unparalleled experiences, at least in our lifetime. So can you imagine if a vaccine would have been found earlier and someone going, well, I'll share the vaccine tomorrow. No, we would run throughout the streets going, I have a vaccine. Well, we have a vaccine that heals and cures something so much worse than COVID. We have a vaccine. We have the remedy that defeats sin, death and evil. And the medicine is Jesus himself. And if we just pray, we'll know who the patients are.

If we just pray, we'll know who it is that we're to share with. And when we get to the point in life where we've reached the pinnacle of whatever it is we were pursuing and we go, this is where I thought I would get to the top and I would go, life is here. And you go, but it's not.

It's empty. I thought I would feel something different. I thought there would be more here than to recognize Jesus has said, I can show you where the good life is. You know, Bob, just as you're saying that, and as we're coming off of the Super Bowl, and of course, football is the greatest illustration for Christianity, but I'm not biased. So there are a lot of fans that were watching the game and they wear the jerseys of their favorite player. But if they were actually go play the game in the jersey of their favorite player, they would get, let me use a biblical word, they would get smolted.

Right? So what happens is, is in life we accomplish and get these things and we get the jersey, but we don't have the makeup to actually wear it and play the game right. And what Jesus is doing in the Beatitudes, He's saying, I want to turn you into a player that can wear the jersey.

And what is the characteristics of these players? Well, one, they're poor in spirit. What does that mean?

God reliant. Two, happier those who mourn. What does that mean? What breaks God's heart breaks my heart. I care for the things that God cares for. Happier those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

What does that mean? God, I'm on your agenda. Align my will to yours. Happier those who are merciful. Wow. Can't we use mercy?

Yeah. Happier those who are pure in heart. What does that mean? It means that you've come to the place to understanding that the only thing good in you is Jesus. This is what you walk us through in the book, The Good Life, which we are making available this week to Family Life Today listeners. If you'd like to make a donation to help support this ministry, we'd love to send you a copy of Derwin's book, The Good Life, what Jesus teaches about finding true happiness. It's a look at the Beatitudes, and it's our gift to you when you make a donation to support this ministry with a donation of any amount. You can make that donation online at familylifetoday.com, or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate.

Let me just explain. Your donations cover the cost of producing and distributing this radio program, this podcast now available through so many channels. This local radio station carries it. You can hear it online. You can get it through the Family Life mobile app.

You can tell Alexa to play Family Life Today. All of this is possible because listeners like you believe in our mission, which is to effectively develop godly marriages and families who change the world one home at a time. Our goal here each day is to equip you with practical biblical help and hope for your marriage and your family. And thanks to those of you who make all of this possible with your donations. If you're a longtime listener and you've never made a donation, why don't you make today the day you join with us? Donate online at familylifetoday.com or call to donate. 1-800-FL-TODAY is the number. And again, we'd like to send you a copy of Derwin Gray's book, The Good Life, as a way to say thank you for your donation today.

So be sure to ask for it when you donate. And thanks again for partnering with us in the ministry of Family Life Today. We appreciate you. Now tomorrow we're going to talk more with Derwin Gray about what the good life really looks like. We're also going to get his counsel, the counsel he gives to engaged couples about how to rightly understand what the good marriage is going to look like. Derwin joins us again tomorrow. We hope you can join us as well. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas. A crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.