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Michael Phelps' Final Individual Swimming Record Broken by 21-Year-Old Leon Marchand

Well, the time has finally come. Michael Phelps is no longer the greatest swimmer in the world. Those of you who are my age or older might remember his swimming career in which he broke record after record and received gold medal after gold medal. He was dubbed the greatest swimmer of all time. So great was he that he raced a shark….and lost.

Of course, before Phelps, there was Mark Spitz who preceded Phelps in setting records and winning a neck-full of gold medals, 7 of them, at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich. He also was dubbed the greatest swimmer of all time, but with all of his records also being broken, he like Phelps is now only “one of the greatest swimmers of all time.”

Greatness is a time limited thing. Those who attain a pinnacle in life soon find themselves bypassed by someone who has bettered them. The slide from greatness is a humbling thing and can happen in the wink of an eye. One mess up is all that it takes to have the title greatest erased from who one is, and the passage of time can almost make one’s greatness meaningless (i.e., who was the greatest chariot rider of all time?). Greatness is eroded by the winds of change, sometimes to the point that people look in the mirror and see someone who doesn’t seem very great at all.

But today, I want you to know this: you are great, unsurpassingly great in one way. You are the greatest child of God. Not because of what you have done or accomplished, but what has been done and accomplished for you. God died for you. God Almighty took the bullet for you. God took God’s stand on the cross and took the pain, the suffering and even the death that was aimed at you and put his life on the line for you. Consider what greatness would be awarded to you if the President of the United States took a bullet for you. But such a mark of greatness is paltry compared to the fact that the one who is ruler of the universe, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega did that very thing for you. Who could ever surpass such an act? Who could ever diminish your greatness?

So, when the world runs by you and you can’t keep up and you feel like a nobody…when you look in the mirror and see the nasty scar of the mess that you have made in your life and you feel like a miserable worm….when you see the tears rolling down the face of someone who life is steamrolling and you can’t do anything to stop it and you feel worthless….when you are down on yourself because of the trash that is floating in the wake of your life….when your energy is drained and the world wants to discard you like a uncharged battery….remember this: God took the bullet for you. You are great….unsurpassingly great!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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