Horizon Baptist Church

Hearing God’s Voice

admin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:21:21 +0000

First, watch the two videos and then keep reading…

Those videos really resonate with me. I know what it is like to be deaf and then hear. I know what it like to have so many “voices” drown out the voice of the Father.

Voices that say things like…

“You will never be good enough for God’s love.”

“You have blown it too many times to be used by God.”

“God loves you but He doesn’t really like you right now.”

For some of us, those voices are the soundtracks of our lives…constantly playing over and over keeping us in a constant state of bondage.

The question is, “Whose voice will you listen to?”

Will you listen to the voice of the Father Who loves to speak truth?

Or will you listen to the other voices?

Let me give you a challenge… Below are ten spaces and in those spaces I want you to write 10 scriptural truths that God says about you.

Then, spend the next few days contemplating your list and rooting out the lies that you have believed that contradict the truth of God…I will go first

1 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Cor. 5:17

Until next time…

Darin

The Church of Your Dreams

admin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:51:56 +0000

It has been my experience that everyone who comes to a church has an agenda. Given enough time, it will eventually emerge. I know that sounds like a bad thing but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes, agendas can be good. Jesus Himself, while on Earth, was consumed with a singular agenda…”to do the will of Him who sent Me.”

For the past few weeks, we have been talking a whole lot about the church we believe God wants us to be. In fact, 2012 is going to be the year we attempt to really flesh this out. This means we are going to have to change some things. This means that some old agendas have to die and some newer ones have to take center stage. This calls for both humility and courage. Faith and determination.

In the middle of all of this, may we not forget what the church really is. The church isn’t programs or meetings or buildings. The church is people… it is us…you and me. This reality is what makes church so exciting and messy at the same time. Each one of us, in our own unique way, contribute to the beautiful mosaic that God is creating called “Horizon.”

I want to end with a short blog post from Ray Ortlund that I read today. It was so refreshing to me that I wanted to share it with you. You may be wondering what the church of my dreams looks like…this is a snapshot. This is really what I hope for us!

Until next time…

Gospel + Safety + Time

by Ray Ortlund

It’s what everyone needs. Everyone. Gospel + safety + time. A lot of gospel + a lot of safety + a lot of time.

Gospel: good news for bad people through the finished work of Christ on the cross and the present power of the Holy Spirit. Multiple exposures. Constant immersion. Wave upon wave of grace and truth, according to the Bible.

Safety: a non-accusing environment. No finger-pointing. No embarrassing anyone. No manipulation. No oppression. No condescension. But respect and sympathy and understanding, where sinners can confess and unburden their souls.

Time: no pressure. Not even self-imposed pressure. No deadlines on growth. No rush. No hurry. But a lot of space for complicated people to rethink their lives at a deep level. If we relax, trusting in God’s patience, we actually get going.

This is what our churches must be: gentle environments of gospel + safety + time. It’s the only way anyone can ever change.

Who doesn’t need that?

Grace from Beginning To End

admin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:17:02 +0000

Always challenged and encouraged by Tullian. He always makes me think!

Enjoy!

Darin

Might As Well Face It, You’re Addicted To Law

by Tullian Tchividjian

I’ll never forget hearing Dr. Doug Kelly (one of my theology professors in seminary) saying in class, “If you want to make people mad, preach law. If you want to make them really, really mad preach grace.” I didn’t know what he meant then. But I do now.

The law offends us because it tells us what to do–and we hate anyone telling us what to do, most of the time. But, ironically, grace offends us even more because it tells us that there’s nothing we can do, that everything has already been done. And if there’s something we hate more than being told what to do, it’s being told that we can’t do anything, that we can’t earn anything–that we’re helpless, weak, and needy.

The law, at least, assures us that we determine our own destiny.

The law does promise life to me,
If my obedience perfect be. (Ralph Erskine)

This we understand. And we like it. We like it because we maintain control–the outcome of our life remains in our hands. Give me three steps to a happy marriage and I can guarantee myself a happy marriage if I follow the three steps. If we can do certain things, meet certain standards (whether God’s, my own, my parents, my spouse’s, society’s, whatever) and become a certain way, we’ll make it. Law seems safe because “it breeds a sense of manageability.” It keeps life formulaic and predictable. It keeps earning-power in our camp.

The logic of law makes sense.

The logic of grace, on the other hand, doesn’t.

Grace is thickly counter-intuitive. It feels risky and unfair. It turns everything that makes sense to us upside-down. Like Job’s friends, we naturally conclude that good people get good stuff and bad people get bad stuff. The idea that bad people get good stuff seems irrational and wrongheaded on every level. It offends our deepest sense of justice and rightness.

Grace is not rational…The gospel of grace throws our glory train off its tracks. Instead of calculating, mastering, and determining, we find ourselves completely helpless, left with no option but to fall into the everlasting arms of the God who could consume us in his wrath but instead embraces us in his Son. (Mike Horton)

So, it doesn’t surprise me at all when I hear people react to grace with suspicion and doubt. It doesn’t surprise me that when people talk about grace, I hear lots of “buts and brakes”, conditions and qualifications. That’s just the flesh fighting for its life, after all. As Walter Marshall says in his book The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, “By nature, you are completely addicted to a legal method of salvation. Even after you become a Christian by believing the Gospel, your heart is still addicted to salvation by works…You find it hard to believe that you should get any blessing before you work for it.”

Because we are natural born do-it-yourselfers–God-wannabes–(and have been since Genesis 3), the vitriol reaction to unconditional grace is understandable. Grace generates panic because it wrestles both control and glory out of our hands. This means that the part of you that gets angry and upset and mean and defensive and slanderous and critical and skeptical and feisty when you hear about grace is the very part of you that needs to be reckoned dead. That’s where mortification begins–it begins with that part of us that hates grace.

But while I’m not surprised when I hear venomous rejoinders to grace (the flesh is always resistant to “It is finished”), I am saddened when the very pack of people that God has unconditionally saved and continues to sustain by his free grace are the very ones who push back most violently against it. Some professing Christians sound like ungrateful children who can’t stop biting the very hand that feeds them. It amazes me that you will hear great concern from inside the church about “too much grace” but rarely will you ever hear great concern from inside the church about “too many rules.” Why? Because we are by nature glory-hoarding, self-centered control freaks. That’s why.

It’s high time for the church to honor God by embracing sola gratia anew–the “high-octane grace that takes our conscience by the scruff of the neck and breathes new life into us with a pardon so scandalous that we cannot help but be changed…For many of us the time has come to abandon once and for all our play-it-safe, toe-dabbling Christianity and dive in” (Dane Ortlund). It is time, as Robert Farrar Capon put it, to get drunk on grace. Two hundred-proof, defiant grace.

It’s scandalous and scary, unnatural and undomesticated…but it’s the only thing that can set us free and light the church on fire.

God, Horizon and You!

admin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:58:30 +0000

Yesterday, we started a new series in our morning worship service called “God, Horizon and You!” To me this is more than a message series…it is the foundation of what I believe God wants to do in and through our church. I believe it is who God wants us to be! I think if you will be passionate about being faithful to church these next couple of weeks, there will be no confusion on your part about how to move deeper in your life with God.

Yesterday, I talked at length about what we believe the mission and purpose of God is behind everything. I believe the biblical answer to this question is the GLORY OF GOD! God’s desire is that His people continually proclaim the goodness of His glorious name in and through everything. Everything God does is in pursuit of that one goal. My challenge to all of us…including myself…was to think about what our lives really reflect. Do I reflect the glory of GOD or the glory of ME?

I want to encourage you to be in church this Sunday because two important things are going to happen that will help us moving forward. First, we are going to talk about the mission of the church. If God is about His glory then it only makes sense to say that His people, the church, should be committed to the same thing. How do we as a local church carry this out? Second, our theme for 2012 is “Living Life Around the Cross!” This is not just a catchy slogan…this phrase is going to direct who we are for 2012 and beyond. As part of this effort, we are going to take a spiritual vitality / life / devotion assessment on Sunday. We will give this assessment out on Sunday morning. This assessment will serve as the foundation for you to understand where your spiritual life is strong and where are the areas that you are out of balance. You really don’t want to miss it!

Lastly, let me also say that I passionately believe that while we should be about God’s mission, we will never be successful without God’s help. So much of what God is asking of us is impossible outside of His divine aid. Because I believe this so passionately, this Wednesday night will be a time of extended prayer. We will humble ourselves before God and do the most important thing that our church will do this year…ask God for His help! There will be no teaching and no Kid’s Connection…just prayer. We will continue to have these special prayer services on the first Wednesday night of every month for 2012. If there is anything that our church does that you should be at…it is these services. We really have no right to expect God’s blessing if we don’t care enough to ask. I can’t think of a better way to pursue God’s glory than this…we will start at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday…see you there!

Darin

See You On Christmas Morning

admin — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:25:42 +0000

Someone once said…”the more things change, the more they stay the same.” I think that is so true, especially at Christmas time. For hundreds of years, the question in the minds of Christians is how do we maintain a balance between Christmas as a cultural holiday and Christmas as a celebration of the birth of our Savior.

Four hundred years ago, Christians in America refused to celebrate Christmas because they believed that it wasn’t commanded in Scripture and they began to see what we are trying to resist today…the excessive materialism at Christmas time. Because of this, they actually cancelled church services on Christmas day.

Today Christians have taken a different stance. The struggle these days is not if the church should celebrate Christmas…almost all do. The struggle seems to be whether or not the stores that we buy our gifts in say “Merry Christmas” vs “Happy Holidays”. Almost daily I receive emails asking me to refuse to shop in certain stores because they say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. I have to wonder if this fight is nothing more than slapping the name of Jesus on our excessive materialism so that we feel justified in spending so much money on things that will be forgotten in three months.

I am not saying don’t enjoy Christmas the cultural holiday. Buy gifts, go to parties, eat good food and enjoy your family…I know I will. Just remember that those things are not ultimate. They are not worthy of our worship.

As a Christian, we know that Christmas is more than a cultural holiday. Christmas stands as a reminder to us of the grace of God revealed as a baby in a manger. Christmas stands as the fulfillment of the promise God made in Genesis 3…that One would come and ultimately crush the head of the Serpent. According to John 1, Christmas is about shining the Light in dark places.

The next time the worker at Best Buy (or where ever) says “Happy Holidays” don’t go into automatic defense mode and correct them. Instead, quietly thank God, that in His goodness, He revealed His grace to you and that He would do that same for this worker. Pray the this worker…your friends…your neighbors…your co-workers would see beyond the cultural holiday to the Baby lying in a manger.

Honestly, if you have any hope of this happening, it has to start with you. So on Christmas morning, where will you be and what will you be doing? For goodness sakes, don’t forget to go to church!

See you on Christmas morning at 10:30!

Darin

Don’t Forget About Joseph

admin — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:39:05 +0000

This is a great blog post about the faith of Joseph as the earthly father of Jesus. What a great reminder about the fact that Joseph knew his Shepherd, heard His voice and followed Him even if that meant damaging his reputation and raising Him as his own Son.

Darin

Let’s Stop Ignoring Joseph

by Russell D. Moore

I played a cow in my first-grade Christmas pageant, and I had more lines than the kid who played Joseph. He was a prop, or so it seemed, for Mary, the plastic doll in the manger, and the rest of us. We were just following the script. There’s rarely much room in the inn of the contemporary Christian imagination for Joseph, especially among conservative Protestants like me. His only role, it seems, is an usher—to get Mary to the stable in Bethlehem in the first place and then to get her back to the Temple in Jerusalem in order to find the wandering 12-year-old Jesus.

But there’s much more to the Joseph figure.

Real Father

When we talk about Joseph at all, we spend most of our time talking about what he was not. We believe (rightly) with the apostles that Jesus was conceived in a virgin’s womb. Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father; not a trace of Joseph’s sperm was involved in the formation of the embryo Christ. No amount of Joseph’s DNA could be found in the dried blood of Jesus peeled from the wood of Golgotha’s cross. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit completely apart from the will or exertion of any man.

That noted, though, we need to be careful that we don’t reduce Joseph simply to a truthful first-century Bill Clinton: “He did not have sexual relations with that woman.” There’s much more to be said. Joseph is not Jesus’ biological father, but he is his real father. In his adoption of Jesus, Joseph is rightly identified by the Spirit speaking through the Scriptures as Jesus’ father (Luke 2:41, 48).

Jesus would have said “Abba” first to Joseph. Jesus’ obedience to his father and mother, obedience essential to his law-keeping on our behalf, is directed toward Joseph (Luke 2:51). Jesus does not share Joseph’s bloodline, but he claims him as his father, obeying Joseph perfectly and even following in his vocation. When Jesus is tempted in the wilderness, he cites the words of Deuteronomy to counter “the flaming darts of the evil one” (Eph. 6:16). Think about it for a moment—Jesus almost certainly learned those Hebrew Scriptures from Joseph as he listened to him at the woodworking table or stood beside him in the synagogue.

Difficult Deed

Our contemporary cartoonish, two-dimensional picture of Joseph too easily ignores how difficult it was for him to do what he did. Imagine for a minute that one of the teenagers in your church were to stand up behind the pulpit to give her testimony. She’s eight months pregnant and unmarried. After a few minutes of talking about God’s working in her life and about how excited she is to be a mother, she starts talking about how thankful she is that she’s remained sexually pure, kept all the “True Love Waits” commitments she made in her youth group Bible study. You’d immediately conclude that the girl’s either delusional or lying.

When contemporary biblical revisionists scoff at the virgin birth of Jesus and other miracles, they often tell us we’re now beyond such “myths” since we live in a post-Enlightenment, scientifically progressive information age. What such critics miss is the fact that virgin conceptions have always seemed ridiculous. People in first-century Palestine knew how babies were conceived. The implausibility of the whole thing is evident in the biblical text itself. When Mary tells Joseph she is pregnant, his first reaction isn’t a cheery “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” No, he assumes what any of us would conclude was going on, and he sets out to end their betrothal.

But then God enters the scene.

When God speaks in a dream to Joseph about the identity of Jesus, Joseph, like everyone else who follows Christ, recognizes the voice and goes forward (Matt. 1:21-24). Joseph’s adoption and protection of Jesus is simply the outworking of that belief.

Same Faith

In believing God, Joseph probably walked away from his reputation. The wags in his hometown would probably always whisper about how “poor Joseph was hoodwinked by that girl” or how “old Joseph got himself in trouble with that girl.” As the stakes grew higher, Joseph certainly sacrificed his economic security. In first-century Galilee, after all, one doesn’t simply move to Egypt, the way one might today decide to move to New York or London. Joseph surrendered a household economy, a vocation probably built up over generations, handed down to him, one would suppose, by his father.

Again, Joseph was unique in one sense. None of us will ever be called to be father to God. But in another very real sense, Joseph’s faith was exactly the same as ours. The letter of James, for instance, speaks of the definition of faith in this way: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (1:27). James is the one who tells us further that faith is not mere intellectual belief, the faith of demons (2:19), but is instead a faith that works.

James shows us that Abraham’s belief is seen in his offering up Isaac, knowing God would keep his promise and raise him from the dead (2:21-23). We know Rahab has faith not simply because she raises her hand in agreement with the Hebrew spies but because in hiding them from the enemy she is showing she trusts God to save her (2:25). James tells us that genuine faith shelters the orphan.

What gives even more weight to these words is the identity of the human author. This letter is written by James of the Jerusalem church, the brother of our Lord Jesus. How much of this “pure and undefiled religion” did James see first in the life of his own earthly father? Did the image of Joseph linger in James’s mind as he inscribed the words of an orphan-protecting, living faith?

It’s a shame that Joseph is so neglected in our thoughts and affections, even at Christmastime. If we pay attention to him, though, we just might see a model for a new generation of Christians. We might see how to live as the presence of Christ in a culture of death. We might see how to image a protective Father, how to preach a life-affirming gospel, even in a culture captivated by the spirit of Herod.

This post originally appeared at The Gospel Coalition Blog on December 15, 2011, under the title, “Father to God, Model for Us.”

Could Christopher Hitchens be in Heaven?

admin — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 03:14:52 +0000

Christopher Hitchens is dead.

He is probably America’s most famous atheist. He spent his life spreading his message of unbelief far and wide. As far as we know, he went to the grave steadfast in his beliefs. In one of his last articles, he said that “death would be the proving ground of his beliefs.”

Since his death, I have watched Christians foolishly post celebratory statements on Facebook like…”Today Christopher Hitchens is no longer an atheist.”

Could it be that the driving force behind statements like this is self righteousness that has forgotten the absolute transforming power of the gospel? Could it be that behind this is an attitude of self satisfaction in our morality? The truth is, without the gospel of Jesus, all of us are in the same boat.

I think some would be shocked and angered to one day discover that the gospel did break through for Christopher Hitchens and in his last moments of life he cried out to Jesus. I think some of us would believe it is just not fair and fortunately you would be right.

I hope that in one of his various debates against Christianity that a seed of the gospel was planted in his heart. I hope that this seed sprouted in his darkest moment and in desperation and faith he cried out to Jesus. If it did happen then right now Christopher Hitchens is joining a great throng from every tribe, tongue and nation singing praises to our great God and King Jesus. That is anything but fair and that is what makes it such good news.

May the eyes of our heart never stop seeing the beauty of the gospel of Jesus that saved a sinner just like you and me. Such is the scandal of the gospel.

Darin

There’s Something About Jesus

admin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:30:36 +0000

Try and watch without laughing

admin — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:17:36 +0000

I tried and couldn’t do it…this is pretty funny.

Darin

Tim Tebow and God

admin — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:03:36 +0000

What is God’s relationship in the victories of Tim Tebow? This is a question that everyone seems to be asking in light of Tebow’s recent success with the Broncos. Here is a thoughtful answer by Owen Strachan from the Gospel Coalition that is worth considering…

Darin

Tebow, Calvin, and the Hand of God in Sports

Two days ago on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” telecast, announcer Bob Costas spent two minutes weighing in on the most exciting—and polarizing—phenomenon in sports right now: the Tim Tebow Magical Fourth-Quarter Show, accompanied by the Denver Broncos players and staff.

Costas, one of the most eloquent and thoughtful voices in sports, suggested that Tebow’s recent string of performances was “approaching, okay we’ll say it, the miraculous.” Many have made similar comments in recent weeks. Costas switched to a more controversial track, however, when he went on to suggest that the God Tebow worships has no interest in influencing the outcome of games. I quote at length from the full transcript:

Again today, Tebow did next to nothing until the waning moments, and then, down 10-0 with two minutes left, he throws a touchdown pass, and the Broncos tie it at the gun on a 59-yard field goal. And then win it in overtime on a 51-yarder. The combination of Denver’s continuing late heroics, and today, the Bears’ otherwise unexplainable errors, is enough to have some at least suspect divine intervention. Except that Tebow, whose sincere faith cannot be questioned, and should be respected, also has the good sense, and good grace, to make it clear he does not believe God takes a hand in the outcome of games.

Most of us are good with that. Otherwise, how to explain what happens when there are equal numbers of believers on either side? Or why so many of those same believers came up empty facing Sandy Koufax? Or hit the deck against Muhammad Ali? Or why the Almighty wouldn’t have better things to do?

Is Bob Costas right? Does God “take a hand in the outcome of games,” or does he “have better things to do,” as Costas, a moral but not notably religious man, seemed to suggest?

God’s Providence and Your Hair Follicles

The question, currently debated in countless American bars and gym locker-rooms, is surprisingly theological and biblical. The historic doctrine of God’s providence teaches that nothing happens outside of God’s purview and ordination. John Calvin, the great 16th-century French reformer, wrote straightforwardly in the Institutes of the Christian Religion that God “directs everything by his incomprehensible wisdom and disposes it to his own end” (I.16). Over against a more deistic philosophy—a system of theology that many adopted in Europe following Calvin’s Genevan tenure—Calvin argued that “God so attends to the regulation of individual events, and they all so proceed from his set plan, that nothing takes place by chance” (I.16).

Calvin taught from biblical texts that suggest the very same. In a discourse on the need to rightly direct natural fear, for example, Jesus taught that God superintends even the death of a sparrow: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father” (Matt. 10:29). Without the Latin terms or the footnotes, Jesus was teaching the doctrine of God’s general providence. The Lord God oversees and brings to pass all that takes place on this earth, whether unseating kings or precisely placing follicles on our heads (Prov. 21:1; Matt. 10:30).

The breath-taking nature of tsunamis and earthquakes naturally disposes us to see, even in our sin, the hand of God in such events. But the Scripture speaks with equal clarity to God’s involvement in the finer points of life. “The lot is cast into the lap,” we read in Proverbs 16:33, “but its every decision is from the Lord.” Every decision, not just the big ones. God is God of the small even as he is God of the great.

This does not mean, however, that God’s work of providence should generally be understood as one long string of what is called “primary causation,” or direct, miraculous involvement. The kind of everyday superintendence that we have just covered owes more to “secondary causation,” or God’s normal directing and upholding of all that transpires according to his wise counsel. Sometimes people get hung up on this kind of technical language, but it’s really just a helpful way of saying that sometimes God intervenes in a special way—say, the miraculous causation of the virgin conception (Luke 1:30ff)—in a way that he did not, for example, when Jesus grew from a boy to a man in normal human fashion (Luke 2:40).

Reclaiming Romans 8

Having sketched these biblical parameters, the Word is yet very clear that the Lord directs believers’ destinies with specific, comprehensive providence. In Romans 8:28, the apostle Paul reminds his audience of just this point: “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” All things, not just the big things. Because God takes special delight in guiding his elect children, we can work and labor and play and rest for his glory and in his strength. We must not allow prosperity-gospel types to hijack the biblical truth that God has a plan for our lives, a plan of great importance and beauty.

Instead of living each day for our own glory, Paul urges us to adopt a theocentric way of life: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). We might sometimes wonder whether the details of our lives are too small to bear cosmic significance, but Paul’s mention of eating and drinking silences such a perspective. All of life matters to God; all of life, for the Christian, is God’s.

The Hand of God in the Field of Sports

We return, then, to our friend, Tim Tebow. Does God, to use Costas’s phrase, “take a hand” in his comeback victories? Working from the biblical and theological resources we’ve briefly mentioned, we’re positioned to answer a question that, as we can see, requires more care than your average drive-time call-in show may gave it.

God oversees and ordains all that comes to pass. This includes, as surprising as it may initially seem, football games. The outcome of every football game ever been played was planned by the all-wise, all-seeing mind of God. But this is not saying what some might think. God has also planned every haircut you’ve ever had, and every shopping trip you’ve ever taken. He is lord of football, and he is lord of produce. Nothing happens outside of his sovereign direction.

We err, though, if we equate his general superintendence of this world—the falling of sparrows, the numbering of hairs—with the special working of his kingdom. This is what Costas seems to be protesting, and in a much fuller sense than he understands. God has a special interest in promoting his gospel and building his church (John 3:16; Rom. 10; Eph. 1). This is not to say that he is uninterested in the ordinary things of the world, but rather to note that the mission of salvation begun after Adam’s fall holds preeminence for God and, by extension, for his followers.

We must also say that for Tebow, the way he plays football is necessarily a matter of God’s glory. In the same way that God gains glory through the work of a faithful accountant, a sacrificial, sleep-deprived mother, and a repentant cellist, God gains glory through righteous athletes who work hard in his name and seek to be a light in dark places. God directs the life and exploits of Tim Tebow, football hero. But he also directs Owen Strachan, Boyce College professor, or my friend Colin LeCroy, a Dallas lawyer, or my friend Emily Duffus, an Atlanta schoolteacher. Tebow may reach more people in his work, but we are all working for the glory of God, who directs and blesses our work so as to magnify his name.

Most Important Story

Is, then, the recent string of Denver Broncos victories a work of “primary causation,” God’s direct and miraculous intervention, in the same way as creation ex nihilo? I am not convinced it is. Costas and other cultural commentators are on roughly the same page as many of you in making this point.

But is the life of Tebow directed by the hand of God, in the same way that the lives of Tim Keller and Christopher Duffley and Elsie Dennison and every other believer are directed by God? Yes. Every Christian exists for the praise of God. Every Christian draws breath because God gives it. Every Christian serves God as a priest, offering acceptable service in the kingdom of his gospel through the power of his Spirit (1 Pet. 2:9). As with every other believer, God’s hand is leading Tebow’s life, blessing him as he applies Christian character to the task before him. God moves in mysterious ways. As previously stated, I do not have biblical grounds for seeing Tebow’s fourth-quarter heroics as an outworking of God’s direct causation. But I do know that God often delights to spurn the wisdom of the world by the efforts of his people (1 Cor. 1:20).

And I know, lastly, that the most important story here is not that Tebow and the Broncos are winning in dramatic fashion, but that the Lord seems to have worked in this man such that, though faced with unbelievable fame, major wealth, constant attention, and the classically all-American success story, Tebow seems only to want to talk about the gospel.

That, my friends, is the real miracle, and the work in which all of us—whether church planter, pipe-fitter, or homemaker—may participate.