reading highlights from this morning

Two gems from some morning reading. First this:

“Gladly would I leave behind / All the idols I have known, / Since I bear inscribed the likeness / Of a more exalted One; / Worthy of unending worship, / Love, and reverence is He; / By His precious death were myriads / From the jaws of death set free.” (Ann Griffiths, quoted in Living for the Glory of God)

And then this:

“Perish each thought of human pride, / Let God alone be magnified; / His glory let the heavens resound, / Shouted from earth’s remotest bound.” (Philip Dodderidge)

gods of America

(A response to Gene Wojciechowski’s column on ESPN.com, “After Tiger, in whom should we believe?“)

We don’t need another hero to worship, Gene Wojciechowski. We don’t need another athlete who will prove to us yet again that humanity is fallen, even if it can accomplish unthinkable feats on the court or the girdiron or the diamond or even on the links.

What we need is not another athlete who our sports-crazed, star-obsessed culture can transform into the next hero. We don’t need another god in America. We’ve made plenty of them. And we’ve watched them all fall, one by one.

So, Gene, that’s where you’re partly right. In the end of your commentary on what happens “after Tiger” you write “Hero worship will never be the same. And shouldn’t.” That’s right. It shouldn’t be the same. But chances are, it probably will.

Chances are, our culture will fall in love with the next big thing in sports. You named several possibilities: LeBron. Jeter. Brady. Manning. Tebow.  And you helpfully asked us to trust at our own risk. But risk America will and trust we’ll give. For a culture that largely lacks God, we tend to create as many gods as we can.

We don’t need another athlete to worship, Gene. We don’t need Jeter’s class or McNabb’s grace or Peyton’s “genuine” nature. And we don’t even need Tim Tebow, who you posit as wanting “the responsibility of setting a standard.” Tebow himself won’t live up to that standard, Gene. And if he’s got any substance behind his talk he knows that too.

It’s funny that in a column that advocates not worshipping athletes again you offer several for our consideration. The truth is, you’re probably voicing the thoughts of many. Tiger will blow by, off the media radar screen, and the next One will take his place as hero and god. Maybe he already has.

But we don’t need another god in America. We’ve got plenty. What we need, Gene, is the God who holds all things in his hands, the One who never has and never will fail, the One who is the same yesterday, today and forever. We need the God who demonstrated his greatness not by winning the Masters or a league MVP, but by becoming a servant supremely on a cross.

We need the gospel, Gene, not an athlete.

december 15

Today is a testimony to a great kindness of God in my life. Today I celebrate two years of being married to Stephanie Roberts. I have been blessed, edified, strengthened and bettered as a Christian and a man through her love for me and our marriage.

Thankful for my bride, and thankful for my God who entrusted me with such a wonderful gift.

 

peter gammons, sportswriting, and me

Sometime during my high school years and college years I got my heart set on being a sportswriter. Maybe it was that my first assignment covering sports for the Jackson Progress-Argus (Jackson, GA) was covering my high school’s basketball team that went undefeated until the last game of the regular season and all the excitement that built up around that drew me in. Maybe it was covering games like Brannan Southerland’s  high school playoff game (the year before he lined up at fullback for UGA) against Morgan County where he pounded straight through the defense for over 200 yards and was truly a man among boys out there. Maybe it was because of my love for baseball, or college football, or March Madness. Certainly it was all of these things.

And there were also some heroes along the way that made me want to do it even more. One of them was Peter Gammons, who retired this week from ESPN after working for the network for 20 years. Gammons is in the Baseball Hall of Fame as a journalist (which was my goal when my plans were to write) after working for the Boston Globe, Sports Illustrated, and ESPN for decades. He set the standard for covering baseball both in print and on air. There’s an incredibly fascinating (for a baseball fan) read today at ESPN.com in which Gammons gives an overview of the highlights from his 20 years with the network. If you’re a baseball guy like me, you’ll love it…

As for me? Two things happened.

First, my great editor, Andy Johnston, looked at me one night when we were the only two in the office and said “Bert, if you ever want to have a family, don’t be a sportswriter.” His exact words. Those words were a big part of changing my life’s direction. Now, almost six years later, my wife and I are expecting our first child in April.

Secondly, and most importantly, during those years I became a follower of Christ. I had some great friends, who were Christians, who took the time to actually befriend someone who was not a Christian. (What a concept!) God used these godly men to show me the gospel of grace, and through their lives I learned what it meant to trust in the death and resurrection of Christ on my behalf for the forgiveness of my sins and right standing with God. 

My following after Christ, more than anything, changed the course of my life. Not that there shouldn’t be Christian men and women working as sportswriters. There’s a great mission field there, like there is in any other “secular” job. But for my life, following Christ has led me somewhere else. How about you?

on Christmas blessings

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, that Your way may be known on the earth, Your saving power among all nations…” Psalm 67:1-2

Blessed by God so that God’s ways may become known. Hmm. That runs counter to so much of what we hear and, often, what we want. We want to be blessed so that we can horde more stuff! At least I do, if I’m not careful. And we sure know that there’s plenty of “preachers” out there telling us to think that way. But that’s not God’s way of thinking…

Our small group from church had the opportunity to offer our time as servers last night for a TeenMOPS (Teenage Mothers Of Preschoolers) Christmas banquet here in Wake Forest. I can’t tell you how great it was to bring a three course meal to these women as they enjoyed an evening together and heard the gospel presented. And you should have seen the look on their faces when we brought out large bags full of presents to them and their children that were graciously donated by other groups in the area. It was a gift to us just to be able to give these gifts to them!

TeenMOPS is a great ministry to a group of people who need the church to reach out in love and not in condemnation. And they need to hear the gospel of grace, just like everyone else. And that’s just what they got last night. Lots of love and the gospel.

So look around you this Christmas season. Find somewhere to be a blessing and not just receive one.

Isn’t that what Christ modeled, and what Christmas speaks all about? “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor. 8:9)

faith and boasting

I am attempting (slowly) to follow Dr. Black’s lead in reading (slowly) Romans in its entirety in Greek. And while I’m not joking about it being slow going, the slow going has been good to slow my mind down to make me spend time thinking about what I’m reading.

So let me offer up one thought from Romans 3:21-31.

God justifies man, or makes man in right standing with himself, through faith alone, and not through works. On this basis, any and all boasting in our lives is excluded. Does living with a mentality of self-justification through works exclude boasting? No, it only enhances it. But living by faith, realizing that I am declared right with God as a gift by his grace alone, this forces me to realize that I have done nothing about which I may boast. There is no boasting, only a humble realization of my sin and a worshipful realization of God’s grace in Christ.

So when boasting arises in my heart and mind, I know I am living in a works-mentality and not by faith.

When I am tempted to look down on someone because they don’t yet understand a Christian truth, I am living by works and inwardly I boast. This is sin. This is not pleasing to God. This is self-idolatry and blasphemy.

When I see people who are not Christians and think of them as “them,” the “enemies” of the faith, or I belittle them in my mind for not “getting it” — I boast, I sin, I live by a works-mentality that says I did something to “get it” and they haven’t done that and therefore I am better than them. This is a disgusting thought that, sadly, permeates much of Christian thinking today and, ashamedly, I must confess I fall to from time to time as well.

And, fellow seminary students, when we pat ourselves on the back for being seminary students, or leaders in our churches, or we elevate ourselves for being so committed to Christ that we would spend several years and several thousand dollars to grow in our understanding of the faith and in so doing we set ourselves apart as somehow being above others or nearer to God or more committed than anyone else in the church — my friends, people will sense this thinking in us. And it is blasphemy, it is self-idolatry, it is the same works-based thinking that Jesus blasted the Pharisees for, that Paul blasted the Galatians for, and that will lead us on a path to spiritual death.

Man’s standing with God comes down to the gift of faith. No one is righteous, and no one is “more” righteous than another, by works. It is by grace, through faith. Boasting is excluded.

Pray that I would receive the grace to kill this deadly sin in my life.

question of the day:

Should I tweet?

(Is that even the way to say it? What I’m trying to ask — should I sign up for Twitter? Is it worth it, or just a waste?)

a quick thought on saturday’s big game…

Why don’t we just call Saturday’s SEC Championship game what it really is?

Look at the facts: The regular season has been played in full. Two teams have been consistently rated #1 and #2 over the course of the entire season. They are undefeated, and though they are among six teams who can all claim that, Alabama and Florida are clearly the best of the six (why else would they and they alone hold the top two spots all season long?).

If we’re stuck in a system that is dependent on human polls, as we are, then isn’t it clear about Saturday’s SEC Championship game in Atlanta? Shouldn’t we just go on and declare its winner the National Champion?

punch him in the face? tech just wants to return the favor.

Washaun Ealey: "I Run This State"

Just wanted to revel one more time in the ACC Championship that UGA won last Saturday night in Atlanta.

Apparently Tech coach Paul Johnson said yesterday that Tech fans should punch guys like me in the face.

That’s funny. I watched Washaun Ealey and Caleb King do that to the Tech defense for four quarters on Saturday!

what am i thankful for? right standing with God.

On a day of giving thanks I have been compelled again to give thanks for the greatest gift: The gift of Christ’s life, death and resurrection given for all who  would trust in him for the forgiveness of sins and right standing with God.

I was greatly encouraged this morning in reading Thomas Cranmer’s great work on Justification by Faith in ”A Sermon on the Salvation of Mankind” (1547) in A Reformation Reader (by Denis R. Janz).

The sermon (a slightly different version than the one I read) can be found here on Google Books. Let me encourage you: sometime over this holiday weekend, take thirty minutes, read Cranmer’s words and be encouraged in your faith.

Here’s a taste,

Christ is now the righteousness of all them that truly do believe in him. He for them paid their ransom by his death. He for them fulfilled the law in his life. So that now, in him, and by him, every true Christian man (and woman!) may be called a fulfiller of the law; forasmuch as that which their infirmity lacked, Christ’s justice hath supplied. (Janz, 352)

From the conclusion:

“Therefore, to conclude, (consider) the infinite benefits of God, shewed and given unto us mercifully without our deserts (deserving), who hath not only created us of nothing, and from a piece of vile clay, of his infinite goodness hath exalted us, as touching our soul, unto his own similitude and likeness; but also, whereas we were condemned to hell and death everlasting, hath given his own natural Son, being God eternal, immortal, and equal unto himself in power and glory, to be incarnated, and to take our mortal nature upon him, with the infirmities (our sins) of the same, and in the same nature to suffer most shameful and painful death for our offenses, to the intent to justify us, and to restore us to life everlasting: so making us also his dear children, brethren unto his only Son our Savior Christ, and inheritors forever with him of his eternal kingdom. (Janz, 356)