Running the Race of Faith

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The Bible is full of images that help us to understand the Christian life: we are part of the army of God, engaged in battle; we are part of the body of Christ; we are Christ’s ambassadors, his envoys, representing him in this world; we are a building, being built up into Christlikeness; we are branches, Christ is the vine; we are the bride of Christ; we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. All of these analogies are rich and useful.

My favorite analogy, however, compares the Christian life to running a race. This analogy is not common throughout the Bible, but Paul loves it, as he uses the running and racing image at least nine times in his epistles. In addition, the author of Hebrews uses the analogy once.

The analogy is particularly rich for me because I am a product of the running boom. I grew up during a period when mile world records would be the lead headline of the sports section; when an American set two of those world records; when 100,000 fans filled a stadium to witness a track meet between the US and the Soviet Union. Then came the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. That summer, as a 16 year old who had been running competitively for less than two years, I watched Jim Ryun, the mile world record holder and my boyhood hero, fall in his 1500 meters heat and thus fail to make the final; I watched Steve Prefontaine, an American runner only five years my senior, make a game effort to win Olympic gold in the 5k; and, most importantly, I watched Frank Shorter demolish the field to win the Olympic marathon. After those Olympics, millions of Americans began running, many hoping to complete a marathon. Every teenage boy in the country who was already running competitively began to dream of mile world records and marathon victories. I was no exception. (more…)

Submission and Disagreement

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In Sunday’s sermon, we looked at Hebrews 13:17, which reads in the NIV:

Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.

In discussing this verse, I said, “Submission only comes into play when there is a disagreement.”

Several of you have asked (respectfully and submissively!) if this is correct, particularly considering that God the Son submits to God the Father. Surely there is no disagreement between them!

This is an excellent point, and many thanks for the input. I’ll correct my statement briefly next Sunday; here let me elaborate on the idea more fully than will be possible in the sermon. Consider first the nature of God the Son’s submission to God the Father: (more…)

Tony Snow, Death and Life

Tony Snow died of colon cancer this morning at the age of 53. He is best known as President Bush’s former Press Secretary.

But Tony and I first met 35 years ago, when were freshmen at Davidson College. We both loved philosophy, and had several courses together. Tony was a voracious reader, a quick thinker, and a prolific writer. Full of energy, full of ideas, adventurous in spirit, he clearly had an interesting life ahead of him. I took a year off between our junior and senior years, going to Kenya to teach secondary school. That year changed my life, as I focused for the next two decades on issues of economic development, spending several years overseas.  Tony corresponded with me while I was in Kenya, and, intrigued, decided to go himself the next year. He taught at the same school. (more…)

Why Read the Prophets?

“Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.” Isaiah 1:4

Those are some of the opening words of the book of Isaiah. I read them this morning, along with the rest of Isaiah chapters 1, 7, and 8, following the chronological ordering of the Bible Unity Reading Plan. Because Israel’s prophets wrote about 30 percent of the Old Testament and almost all of them lived and wrote between the years of 750BC and 515BC, those of us following this plan will be reading mainly from the prophets for the next three months.

There are passages in the prophets that most Christians know and love: Those we read every Christmas, such as Isaiah 9 and 11; the song of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53; the promise of the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31. These are pearls in the midst of . . .

Of what? We’re tempted to say, “in the midst of the less interesting parts of these books.” Or even to say, “in the midst of the less important parts of these books.” For the prophets devote a great deal of time to condemnation of Israel and Judah (such as Isaiah 1:4 above) and then also a great deal of time condemning the nations surrounding them. This can be . . . dare we say, tiresome? (more…)

The Opposite of Disobedience

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What is the opposite of disobedience?

The obvious answer is “obedience.” But that is not the biblical answer. And understanding why this logical answer is not biblical is key to living the Christian life.

Consider Psalm 1, which begins by describing the righteous man in negative terms:

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

The righteous man does not act like or listen to the advice of those opposed to God, nor does he join them in mocking God. That is, he does not disobey God.

The psalmist then contrasts that negative description of the righteous man with a positive description. If the opposite of disobedience were obedience, we might expect a direct contrast with “does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,” perhaps something like: “But he walks in the law of the Lord.” This would create a nice parallel with the first verse; furthermore, it would be a true statement. Indeed, Psalm 119 opens with similar words: “How blessed are those whose way is blameless, Who walk in the law of the LORD.”

But instead of that truth, Psalm 1:2 goes deeper, displaying the root of the matter:

but his delight is in the law of the LORD.

The opposite of disobedience is not obedience. The opposite of disobedience is delight.

Why? There are at least four biblical reasons: (more…)

When I Don’t Desire God

[Our small group just completed a several month study of John Piper’s book, When I Don’t Desire God. My study guide to this book is now available online (Word document, pdf). Here are my introductory paragraphs – Coty]

God created mankind for a purpose: To bring glory to His Name (Isaiah 43:7). How do we glorify Him? For over twenty years, John Piper has argued that the Bible teaches that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” That is, we glorify God when we can say with the psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25-26). We show that God is great and precious and trustworthy and beautiful when we live and act and feel in ways that magnify His value compared to the value of the world around us. This is our calling. This is our reason for existence.

Yet we don’t wake up spontaneously each day feeling that God is great and marvelous. Quite the contrary. Most mornings we wake up feeling groggy and cranky, acting self-centered and self-absorbed. If we depend on our spontaneous feelings, most of us will spontaneously act like this world is all that is important, that our time and our comfort and our success are the overarching values in life.

So how do naturally self-centered persons live a life of joy in God? (more…)

Sins We Blame on Others

My friend Ben Reaoch, a pastor in Pittsburgh who frequently attends our church planter network meetings, has a challenging and convicting post on the Desiring God blog, listing 12 sins that we regularly blame on others. Here are the first two; read all twelve, and ask God to search your heart:

1) Anger

I wouldn’t lose my temper if my co-workers were easier to get along with, or if my kids behaved better, or if my spouse were more considerate.

2) Impatience

I would be a very patient person if it weren’t for traffic jams and long lines in the grocery store. If I didn’t have so many things to do, and if the people around me weren’t so slow, I would never become impatient!

Elijah and the Priests of Baal

As part of my devotions this morning from the Bible Unity Reading Plan, I read the story of Elijah and the priests of Baal from 1 Kings 18. The king of Israel is apostate, worshiping false gods, the Baals and the Asherim. The people – though they were chosen as special to the Lord a thousand years previously, and though their very name, Israel, was given by God (see verse 31) – are “limping between two opinions” (verse 21); not really knowing who is mighty, they are trying to cover all bases by worshiping both Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel, and the local Canaanite deities.

So Elijah tells them this makes no sense. Either Yahweh is God or He is not. If He is God, follow Him; if Baal is god, follow him (verse 21). Yahweh’s claims are exclusive: “Know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that Yahweh is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other” (Deuteronomy 4:39). He won’t share the pantheon with other supposed gods.

Elijah therefore sets up a contest on Mt Carmel between Yahweh and Baal through their representatives: Himself on the one hand and the 450 priests of Baal on the other. Both build altars, kill bulls, and prepare the bulls to be burned as a sacrifice, but neither is to set the wood of the altar on fire. “And the God who answers by fire, He is God” (verse 24). Interestingly enough, the priests of Baal are amenable to this. Do they really believe Baal will answer? Or do they anticipate that neither offering will be burned, and they will win simply by force of numbers? (more…)

Church Membership and the SBC

An encouraging vote took place this week in Indianapolis at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. Before telling you about it, some background:

We gladly cooperate with the SBC through sending a proportion of our offerings – at present, five percent – to local, state, national, and international efforts to spread the Gospel. We ourselves were beneficiaries of this cooperation among independent churches, receiving in our first years about $25,000 in grants through the SBC, as well as practical help on a number of issues. I am particularly pleased that our giving supports the International Mission Board of the SBC – one of the very best mission agencies, which over the last 25 years has refocused its efforts on church planting among unreached people groups – and seminaries such as Southeastern here in North Carolina and Southern in Louisville, which are now staffed by dedicated biblical scholars committed to raising up the next generation of expository preachers. (more…)

How Do I Respond to God?

In the sermon text for this coming Sunday, God says that missionaries will bring “all your brethren from all the nations as a grain offering to the LORD” (Isaiah 66:20 NAS). In this context, the grain offering is a particularly powerful symbol. Unfortunately, I doubt that I will have time to bring out the rich imagery of this offering on Sunday. So here is an excerpt from a sermon I preached ten years ago on this offering. You can see the entire sermon – about twice as long – here. May we present ourselves – all of ourselves – as this type of offering, holy and acceptable to God – Coty

How should we respond to God’s love? The grain offering described in Leviticus 2 pictures our proper response beautifully.

In this offering, God shows us that we should respond to His love by offering our entire lives back to him. And He shows that a life holy and acceptable to God is not the result of our naturally sweet disposition; there should be no self-glorification, no pride in our status before God. Instead, a life offered to God needs to be characterized by prayer, infused with the Holy Spirit, and based on the promises of God

This is the picture of the grain offering. Let’s look at now in greater detail. (more…)