I have a tendency to at any moment pick up my computer to research something....something that might be as trivial as can be. Most of you have probably heard of the great distance runner Steve Prefontaine....'Pre'....as he was known. Well...men like Prefontaine and Mark Spitz and Dan Gable were around my age...and their great accomplishments tend to stick in my mind. Today it was Steve Prefontaine....who died in an auto accident at the age of 25. So I was going over his life of running....amazed as always....because he was known for taking the lead from the start....and running through pain. The whole episode lasted maybe an hour and half....and that was that....but I have been the last few days spending my Bible reading time in the book of Hebrews....and I came to chapter 12....and this verse...."let us run with endurance the race that is set before us...."
This morning I went to a sermon by John Piper that he titled...."The Lord Governs My Good And Is My Good." It is a typical Piper unction-induced exposition of Psalm 16. I think this was the third time that I listened to it in the last week. Is that fanatical....listening to a specific sermon three times....and listening to sermons every day by either men from the past....or men today who preach like men from the past? It may look that way but I do not think that it is. Piper in this sermon tackles that concept head on. God is everything! Anything short of that....is something short of life.
Filled with an emotion that has to be there under the circumstances.....Piper pleads to God....."I have no good apart from you! You govern the good that comes to me....and you are the good that comes to me....I have no good apart from you!" In typical Piper fashion....he pauses and repeats often....hands flailing as he talks...."the sorrows of those people who run after another god.....multiply.....multiplied sorrows!" He speaks for David...."I have found my treasure.....I have found my Lord....I have found my good....I have found my delight"....and Piper asks of us...."Have you? Have we found our treasure....or are we still running?"
What kind of God would it be....must it of necessity be....if we are not overwhelmed at His glory? To barely think about God during the day....let me expand on that....to not think of God and pray always.....in some way....means either that this god is not really God....or if He is then we are not really His? Can you find a flaw in that logic? Those few words from Piper's sermon are within probably the first five or six minutes. What have you to do today that is so important that it takes precedence over the Lord of Glory over all creation....the Savior of your souls....and your King.....your coming King? The sermon can easily be Googled.
