ONE of my favorite all-time movies is Rocky V<\/i>. In the movie, Rocky Balboa is now too old to fight. He received an eye injury in Rocky IV<\/i> and retired. Up comes a young man named Tommy Gunn. Tommy Gunn is an up-and-coming heavyweight and has always idolized Rocky Balboa. He asks Rocky to train him and make him the kind of champ Rocky was before. Rocky agrees, thinking that this was a good way for him to stay in the game of boxing.<\/p>\n
Rocky becomes the trainer for this young man. The young man rises and becomes contender for the heavyweight championship of the world through the training and discipleship of Rocky Balboa. The problem comes because this young man gets too big for his britches. He thinks he\u2019s something now. He\u2019s got the ladies, he\u2019s got the money, and he\u2019s got the prestige. So he figures, I don\u2019t need the old man anymore. Now, in Rocky V<\/i>, the whole movie comes down to the last fifteen minutes because Tommy Gunn comes into Rocky\u2019s home and threatens Rocky, his wife, and his son. Rocky is furious and Tommy Gunn challenges Rocky to a fight, saying, \u201cI will whip you right now in front of your family. I will destroy, you old man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rocky is angry. He tears off his shirt. The rumble in the neighborhood starts and goes out into the street. People begin showing up to watch the scene. Somebody calls the news and the news show up. Cameras are everywhere watching this brawl in the streets between Rocky Balboa and his young prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Tommy Gunn who\u2019s gone crazy. The problem is, Tommy Gunn is too young, too strong, and too fast. Rocky can\u2019t keep up with the young man. Try as he might, he just can\u2019t keep up. At one point, Tommy Gunn reaches back and gives Rocky a right cross across his jaw that sends Rocky Balboa falling into the gutter. He is there in the gutter with his wife crying, and with his son sitting over him. The old man has been beaten, broken, and bruised. He has been defeated and destroyed. While lying in the gutter, he remembers his past. The movie screen flashes his thoughts. Pictures are shown of Rocky in his younger days when the Italian Stallion first went into the ring. His opponent said, \u201cYou\u2019re going down,\u201d and Rocky said, \u201cOh no, I\u2019m not.\u201d Rocky won that fight. He fought to a draw.<\/p>\n
After this flashback, Rocky tries to get up out of the gutter, but he can\u2019t. Then his thoughts flash to a scene from Rocky I<\/i>. He remembers another fight where he came back to win. He remembered that he has the power to come back. Motivated again, Rocky tries to get up but can\u2019t. Then Rocky remembers Mr. T from Rocky III<\/i>. In this movie, Rocky had been beaten and bruised and broken and defeated, but he again fought back and won the championship. When he remembers this win and tries to get up out the gutter, he still can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Rocky has another flashback where he remembers Ivan Glasgow in Rocky IV<\/i>, the Russian machine, who no man could whip. He remembers how he went over to Moscow and defeated the Russian. He remembers how the Russian crowds began to chant \u201cRocky, Rocky, Rocky\u201d as he held the American flag. He remembers his victory and tries to get up, but he can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
But then Rocky remembers one other picture. He sees his old coach Mickey. He remembers the day when he was in a fight and had been knocked to the canvas. He remembers Mickey sitting over him, saying, \u201cGet up, get up, you bum, \u2019cause Mickey loves you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, that\u2019s when the Rocky theme songs starts playing! All of a sudden Rocky shakes his head and pushes himself up from the gutter. Tommy Gunn is walking away, thinking he has won. Rocky says, \u201cYo, Tommy, come on back. We are going to go for one more round.\u201d He finds power he did not have, and he finds ability he does not have because he remembers somebody who had died and then who had \u201ccome back to life\u201d to let him know he was loved.<\/p>\n
No matter your status and how many times the Devil has knocked you down, two thousand years ago somebody loved you, died for you, and rose up from the dead. He says to us today, \u201cGet up, get up, you bum, because Jesus loves you!\u201d771<\/p>\n
[Christ, Freedom in; Love, Power of; Jesus]<\/p>\n
Rom. 8:37; Eph. 5:1\u20132<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ONE of my favorite all-time movies is Rocky V. In the movie, Rocky Balboa is now too old to fight. He received an eye injury in Rocky IV and retired. Up comes a young man named Tommy Gunn. Tommy Gunn is an up-and-coming heavyweight and has always idolized Rocky Balboa. He asks Rocky to train … Continue reading “RESTORATION,
\nPOWER FOR”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}