"Defense Wins Championships"

The 2025 NFL regular season may have just started up, but the Green Bay Packers have already put the rest of the league on notice that they are legitimate contenders this year.

Green Bay put together another impressive performance on Thursday night, topping the Washington Commanders 27-18 to move to 2-0 on the campaign.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Green Bay’s performance has been its stout defense. Though the Packers’ first two opponents (Detroit and Washington) both finished with top-seven offenses in the league a year ago, Green Bay has allowed an average of just 238 yards through its first pair of contests.

In many respects, Green Bay’s dominant defensive displays shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. After all, the Packers landed star pass rusher Micah Parsons in a blockbuster trade right before the start of the regular season, a move that indicated the franchise’s commitment to building an elite defensive unit.

After last night’s game, Parsons made these remarks to the media about the team’s emphasis on this year's defense:

"What I've been telling everyone: defense wins championships. [Jordan] Love, you know, you give us 20 points, we should be able to win that game. It's all about getting stops and getting the ball back to the offense.

"As y'all have seen against Baltimore and Buffalo, you can have a quarterback…near have a perfect game and still lose because guess what, the defense just gave up, what, 40 points? So, defense wins championships.”

As much as we, as fans, enjoy watching explosive offenses light up the scoreboard, it is indeed true that the key to being successful on the gridiron is having an elite defense that can prevent other teams from scoring.

When it comes to our battle against sin as followers of Jesus, the importance of having a strong defense is equally true for us. One of the keys to living a life pleasing to the Lord is equipping ourselves with a strong defense that is prepared to face the barrage of temptations we will inevitably encounter.

That means, of course, that we must do much of the hard work in advance so we are prepared when temptation comes to attack.

The author of Psalm 119 spoke of the way that he “played defense” against sin and temptation when he wrote, “I have stored up Your Word in my heart, that I might not sin against You” (Psalm 119:11; ESV).

According to the author, the key to not sinning against God was already having His Word stored in his heart ahead of time. That means that he was equipping his heart to defend against sin by reading and meditating upon God’s Word.

Perhaps no passage in the Bible captures this concept more powerfully than Ephesians 6:11-13 (NIV), which says, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

“Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”  

The passage clearly emphasizes the importance of being prepared in advance to defend against temptation and evil. Just as a soldier who doesn’t have his equipment ready stands a serious chance of incurring harm, so do Christians who fail to put on the full armor of God stand a serious chance of losing the battle against temptation when it comes their way.

While we must always strive to respond the right way to temptation when it arises, we should not be naive enough to think that we can will ourselves in our own strength to do the right thing in the moment every time.

Because we still fight against our flesh, we must be incredibly proactive in strengthening our defensive resources by being engaged in disciplines such as scripture reading, meditation, prayer, fasting, and Christian fellowship.

Only when we invest resources into our “defense” will we be able to see true success in our fight against sin.

Today, let’s make sure we are giving our “defense” the attention that it deserves, so we will be properly prepared to defeat temptation when it knocks on our door.

I’m Matt Osborne, and you can UNPACK that!

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, please help me to be equipped at all times to resist temptation and honor You. Please help me not to become proud or arrogant, but to humbly recognize how much I need to stay alert against sin so that I might not fall. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.