Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: The Greatest Love Story

As mentioned in the previous post, we are bringing this series on the book of Joshua to an end with the sermon on Jos. 24 in this post. I hope you have enjoyed this book and learning about living the Christian life as much as I have. I hope God has used it to bless your soul as much as He has used it to bless mine.

To introduce this sermon, let's review ever-so-briefly: This book shows us the Kingdom of God spreading physically into the land of Canaan as the people follow Joshua and Joshua follows God in the conquest of the Promised Land. And, again, as we have said almost every week as we have gone through this book, they had to fight by faith in God who truly fights for them. Well, in a similar way, our lives are mirrored but spiritually; not physically. Today, we’re following Jesus—the Commander of the Lord’s army to whom Joshua points us—we’re following Him as He spreads the Kingdom spiritually in our hearts and throughout the world. Yes, for us it’s spiritual and our enemies are not literal people like they were for Joshua and the Israelites, but our battles are no less real. And, their battles, just like ours, rested on spiritual principles—fighting by faith—and those principles are the same throughout space and time. So, we’ve learned a lot so far about faith and living by faith from this book as we’ve worked our way through it, and here the story of this book ends with God’s people coming together before God one more time to renew the covenant. And, this covenant renewal shows us the greatest love story of all time—a love story that not only draws us to Jesus but motivates and compels us to live for Him.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it and this whole series to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Little Gods

"Little gods are fine for little problems, but when you have a whopper of a problem you better have a whopper of a God... God the Father loves us and cares for us, but don't forget that He's God, that He's not safe, that He's not manageable. If God doesn't confuse you sometimes, you're probably worshiping an idol." ~ Steve Brown

Steve is a professor, friend, and mentor of mine. One of his ministries is Key Life. He does a daily broadcast called "Key Life" (shocking!) and a weekly, one-minute clip called "You Think About That", which is where the above quote comes from.

Steve is right--if we look at God and think we have Him figured out, we are probably not looking at the true God. We sometimes try to put God in a box so we can have answers to all the questions people ask like, "How can God ordain evil and not be responsible for it?" but when we do, the god that we present to the world is really just an idol that looks more like us than like the true God. When we hit a wall in life like a friend committing suicide, a fiance dying, a parent getting cancer, or a daughter getting pregnant, that god-in-a-box simply will not do. We need a sovereign God who, while we may not understand Him, is powerful enough to keep His promises to His children.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Idolatry in Desire

In one of Piper's recent articles he discussed 12 signs that desire is becoming idolatry. I thought I would share his wise insights.

1. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is forbidden by God.
2. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is disproportionate to the worth of what is desired.
3. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is not permeated with gratitude.
4. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it does not see in God’s gift that God himself is more to be desired than the gift.
5. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is starting to feel like a right, and our delight is becoming a demand.
6. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it draws us away from our duties.
7. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it awakens a sense of pride that we can experience this delight while others can’t.
8. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is oblivious or callous to the needs and desires of others.
9. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it does not desire that Christ be magnified as supremely desirable through the enjoyment.
10. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is not working a deeper capacity for holy delight.
11. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when its loss ruins our trust in the goodness of God.
12. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when its loss paralyzes us emotionally so that we can’t relate lovingly to other people.

By His Grace,
Taylor