Jul
23
2010
The NFL season: are you ready to resist?
The NFL season starts soon. Great. I love football. But if only it were that simple. The NFL in its televised grandeur and inflated drama claims too much for itself. It claims too much of our attention on Sundays especially. Let’s get ready now to resist its over-reaching. Let’s get ready to put it in its true place, under Christ. So it’s like this, as August is soon upon us: “Hey Mr. NFL, good to see you again. Glad you’re back. Sure, I might be able to fit you into my iPhone calendar somewhere here. Umm, no, that’s filled. And that won’t work either. Uhhh — Oh, here’s an opening. Sure, I might have some time here . . . .”
Jesus, community, mission — I submit to these claims. I manage all others. Jesus alone is Lord. Jesus alone is joy. I will set no limits on him. I will set proper limits on everything else.
“What an utter denial it is of the whole of the New Testament, this foolish suggestion that one service a Sunday is enough, one that takes place at nine o’clock in the morning, to get rid of it, as it were, in order that you can then really go and enjoy yourselves and have real happiness in looking at the television or in rushing to the seaside or in playing golf!
But what happens when people are baptized with the Holy Spirit — as you read throughout Acts — is that they want to keep together, to get together as often as they can — they continued daily, steadfastly, talking about these things, singing together, praising God together. This was the thing that was first above everything else. Everything else came second; even their work was something they had to do. It was right that they should do their work, of course, but this was the thing that meant life to them, joy and salvation.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Joy Unspeakable (Wheaton, 1984), page 102. Italics original.
HT: Joseph Prielozny