70 x 7

13 PAX, including 3 FNGs, kicked the gloom in the face at Hurricane Alley on Wednesday, 8/3. The 73-degree morning with 93% humidity was tame compared to what we’ve been experiencing as of late.

Some notables before we begin…

• Brown Shorts was back from his mission trip to Costa Rica just in time to critique my Q form.
• Whittle (70 – triple respect) is the man. If your backblast doesn’t include some kind of shout out to him, you’re doing it wrong.
• Members of The Alley had completed Flow Rider’s “Old Glory” PT test on Monday so the original workout I had planned was postponed for a later date in order to give the running-averse among us a little break.

Warmup

1. SSH 15 IC
2. Mountain climber 20 IC
3. Plank jack 25 IC

The Thang

Mosey to block pile, hand out blocks, return to the circle.

At this point, YHC shared the inspiration for today’s workout–Matthew 18. The first passage was verses 6 and 7 where Jesus warns of becoming stumbling blocks to the “little ones” around us. Since we were going to be quite friendly with our blocks for the remainder of the workout, I challenged the PAX to let the blocks make them think of the areas of their lives that could potentially be causing others to fall.

And so it began…

We would complete 4 sets of 7 different exercises, lowering the number of reps each time (25, 20, 15, 10) with some form of running in between.

Each set followed this pattern:

1. Derkins on block
2. Squats with block
3. Tricep extensions
4. Lateral block hops DC
5. Curls
6. American hammer with block DC
7. Overhead press

The first set of 25 reps was murderous, especially the tricep extensions and American hammer. True to form, Brown Shorts called out my form on the curls, but he can’t stay mad at me long! We were all thankful to break from our blocks. However, after snaking 6 flights of stadium stairs, absence was making the heart grow fonder. Each man was rewarded for completing the stairs with an 80-yard sprint back to the flag into the loving arms of his cinder block.

Upon completion of the equally-as-soul-crushing 2nd set, YHC audibled for the sake of time and told the PAX to snake every other flight of stairs as opposed to all 6. Stairs. Sprint. Back to blocks.

It was somewhere around here that Mr. Belding realized that this workout itself was an audible as the result of Flow Rider’s Q from Monday. A grudge was formed…

Also around this point, I was getting concerned with the time so we kicked the pace up a notch for the 15-rep set. After 15 reps of each exercise had cranked out, I audibled the run section to bypass the stairs altogether. I replaced it with a simple 80-yard out-and-back.

With the end in sight, we knocked out the round of 10 reps, ran the out-and-back, and returned our blocks to their wretched homes.

To all of our disappointment, we still had 1 minute remaining. Just enough time to knock out 20 flutters IC.

COT

When all of the sweat had been sweated, I finished my thoughts on Matthew 18 with verses 21-35. In these verses, Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive a brother who sins against him. Peter suggested that 7 might be the number. Jesus upped the ante by saying that we shouldn’t just forgive people 7 times. Instead, we should forgive people 70 x 7 times (490 if you don’t have a calculator handy).

At this point, I wowed the group with my math skills. I reminded them that we had done sets of 7 exercises and that all the set totals added together equalled 70 reps (25+20+15+10=70). Suddenly, all of the madness made sense. 70 x 7.

Jesus continued by sharing the parable of the unmerciful servant. The story, in short, is that a King forgives a MASSIVE debt that one of his servants owes. However, the servant later refuses to forgive a small debt that one of his friends owes him. The king finds out and demands that the first servant be tortured until he could repay the entire original debt.

The lesson I took from this passage was that we can never forget the debt that Jesus has cancelled for us. We can’t forget the sin, shame, and hopelessness that he saved us from. When we lose sight of it, we begin to think that WE have done a great work, and we begin to look at everyone else’s sin with judging eyes.

The longer we’ve been following Jesus, the more prone we are to look down on people who don’t follow Him. Christians are perceived by many in our world as judgemental hypocrites, and we’ve done that to ourselves. It starts when we forget what our lives were like before we experienced the grace of God.

The lesson I wanted to leave the PAX with was this: We should be people who never forget the massive debt we once owed. When we keep that in view, we will operate in humility and grace towards anyone who hasn’t yet experienced the cancelling of their own debt. And when we operate with that kind of humility and grace, people who have built up walls towards God and judgy Christians will have their hearts softened to the Gospel.

70 x 7. We’ve been forgiven much. We, in turn, should be willing to forgive much!

Announcements

NewSpring Powdersville building is opening this Sunday behind Walgreens. Services will be at 9:15am and 11:15am.

Prayers

Clarinet has friends who are struggling in their marriage. Pray for them and all marriages because the enemy wants to attack our marriages and families.

Brown Shorts’ wife and daughter are in Alberta, Canada on mission trip doing sports camps. Pray that they will have safety and favor with the people.

12th man has injured his back/shoulders. Pray that he will recover well and be able to be back soon.