Only What’s Done for Christ Will Last

As I was ruminating this morning about my 77 years of life (44 as a Christian; 25 as a pastor and parachurch leader in the DC area) - I remembered what British missionary C.T. Studd (1860-1929) once penned: 

"Oh let my love with fervor burn, And from the world now let me turn;
Living for Thee, and Thee alone,
Bringing Thee pleasure on Thy throne;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, yes only one,
Now let me say, “Thy will be done”;
And when at last I’ll hear the call,
I know I’ll say “twas worth it all”;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past, 
Only what’s done for Christ will last. 

Some of us have much joy in this life, others much sorrow. Some of us are given public platforms and recognition, and others of us live in obscurity and hardship. But one thing we’re all promised in this life is that it will soon end. Everyone will stand before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10). Nothing will be hidden. All our motivations and desires will be revealed. Then, before our Holy and Righteous God, we will all give an account of how and why we used the days, words, relationships, resources, skills, and opportunities God entrusted to us. 

For that day, O Lord make us ever mindful that only what is done for Christ will last. Lord, help us! May the legacies we leave as husbands, fathers, disciplers, as churchmen, pastors, leaders of ministries, and brothers in Christ be God-besotted, Christ-exalting and blood-bought Bible guys — who believed that God is most glorified in us when we were most satisfied in Him. May our lasting legacy be not so much in what we accomplished but in who we were in Christ Jesus. “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12

 Dave Brown, Director of WACMM

The Story of Jesus Guarantees How Your Story Will End

How will my story end? This is the question in the mind of every human being.

How will my marriage end?

What will happen to my career?

Will my suffering ever end?

How will my kids turn out?

Will my investments pay off?

How will I get myself out of this mess?

Will I pass this course?

What will I have to deal with in old age?

What will I do after I graduate?

How will my ministry turn out?

Will the Bible turn out to be true? 

These kinds of questions somehow, some way, haunt every human being. It doesn’t take many years of life before you conclude that you’re not only not in control of the big things in life, but also that there are very few things you actually control. It doesn’t take long for the delusion of self-sovereignty to shatter. We’re all also confronted with the fact that we live in a broken world that doesn’t function the way the Creator intended. As a child, you aren’t capable of theologically thinking this through, but you know messed-up and hurtful things happen a lot. As an adult, you adjust your expectations because you know the kinds of things that can happen in a fallen world. 

In our smallness, we wonder if our lives will turn out the way we hoped and dreamed. My answer may surprise you. No, you won’t get much of what you hoped for and probably few of your dreams. But here’s the wonderful encouraging flip side of my answer. What you will get as God’s child is way better than anything you could’ve hoped for and incomparably better than your brightest dream. Pay careful attention to what I am able to say. God doesn’t guarantee you’ll get your temporary dream; what he guarantees you is forever.

Because we are rational beings, we don’t live life based only on the facts of our experience; we depend on our interpretation of our experience. We never leave our own lives alone. We are always thinking, interpreting, and rethinking. We carry assumptions with us and we draw conclusions, which color future observations. Let me say this another way: we are all storytellers, and our audience is us. We all compose a story of how we think our life should unfold; it’s a story of what we desire and dream. And we all work to make the plot that we have written for ourselves come true. But grace introduces another author.

We are not actually the authors of our own stories; God is. He wrote our story ages before we took our first breath. Every situation, location, and relationship was written into the chapters of his book, by his sovereign hand. And by grace, he has embedded our story into the great and grand, origin-to-destiny redemptive story. We are now citizens of his kingdom; we now live in the shadow of his glory, and we are now called to live with his purpose in mind. Because our story has been embedded in his story, there is no doubt how our story will end.

Yes, we will suffer along the way. Yes, our hearts will go through seasons where they are laden with grief. No, we won’t always be healthy. Yes, we will be weak and we will fail. Yes, loved ones will leave us. Sometimes we will go through seasons of want. We won’t always be respected and appreciated. We won’t always experience true justice. There will be chapters in the story that God has written for us that will be very hard. But we must remember two things. First, he has written himself into the story so that he will always be with us, giving us what we could never give to ourselves. Second, what your Lord has written for you is not less than the plot you have written for yourself, but infinitely more.

Most of us would be satisfied with temporal human happiness. We’d be satisfied with a good job, a nice house, a reliable car, a good church, a good marriage, successful children, and health and pleasure in our later years. But all of these dreams are not only self-oriented, but they are so dramatically brief when compared to the expansiveness of God’s story. So rather than deliver our small and self-oriented dreams, God did something better: he sent his Son to earth.

Jesus was willing to come, suffer, and die so that we would have a way better story. He suffered so that our suffering would end forever. He lived a selfless life so that we would be freed from our bondage to ourselves, so that for all eternity we would know the liberating joy of living for something and someone bigger than ourselves. Because of his humiliation we will know the exaltation of living forever in the presence of the King.

Know today that no matter what you are going through, because of the grace of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, your little story has now been absorbed into his great story of victory over all that sin has broken. Because of what Jesus has done, you can rest in knowing the glorious way your story will end. In fact, because of the grace of Jesus, the end of your story is that it has no end! 

From Journey to the Cross: A 40-Day Lenten Devotional by Paul Tripp

What We Get Wrong about Nicodemus and Joseph

Often chided by readers of Scripture for hiding their faith, Nicodemus and Joseph, two Pharisees, showed more courage than you realize.

We know from the Gospels that Jesus’ ministry provoked mostly widespread opposition from religious leaders, both the Sadducees and the Pharisees. But the Bible also shows specific examples of religious leaders who earnestly sought to understand Jesus and eventually became followers of Christ. Of these, Nicodemus is perhaps the most prominent. Nicodemus was a Pharisee but held a seat on the Sanhedrin, the prestigious, 70-member ruling body dominated by Sadducees. We first meet him in the pages of John’s gospel as he seeks out a secret meeting with Jesus at night and probes the itinerant teacher with a series of questions.

It’s easy to question why Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, away from the crowds. Those of us who have never faced any opposition for our Christian faith, who probably have more fish stickers on our cars than we do unbelieving friends, might not get what it is like to live as a Christian in a desperately hostile environment, but we would be foolish to consider Nicodemus a coward in this moment.

Even to meet with Jesus at night was an act of courage, a willingness to obey that small voice of faith. To be seen with Jesus carried enormous risk for such a prestigious religious leader. The Pharisees would soon cast off anyone from their synagogue if they professed faith in Jesus (John 9:22), something Jesus would later warn his disciples of in his Upper Room Discourse (16:2).

Jesus never rebuked Nicodemus for his slow, secret quest. R. C. Sproul says this is in keeping “with our Lord’s refusal to put out a faith that, being mingled with fear, seems to be a smoldering wick (Isa. 42:3).”

We should be thankful for this smoldering wick, for Nicodemus’s probing questions of Jesus inspired perhaps the most beautiful words in all of Scripture: Jesus’ declaration of his mission, words the Spirit of God has blown into the hearts of so many in the millennia since this fateful encounter. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). By these words, many smoldering wicks, many Nicodemuses, have met Jesus in their own dark nights of the soul and have emerged as children of the light.

We don’t know if Nicodemus converted that night, but he shows up again in John’s gospel (John 7:50–51), defending Jesus in what seems to be a private discussion among religious leaders. The Pharisees were angry that Jesus had declared himself to be “living water” at the Feast of Tabernacles, a sacred rite that commemorated God’s faithfulness in the desert (Lev. 23:42–43). Jesus invited the Jewish pilgrims in Jerusalem that day to believe in him and find “streams of living water” (John 7:38, CSB), a fulfillment of the prediction by the prophets of the coming of the Holy Spirit (Isa. 55:1; Joel 2:28). His claims of deity caused some to believe but also enraged many Pharisees at what they considered blasphemy. Nicodemus urged them to resist a rush to judgment on Jesus’ deity, reminding them that the law required doing due diligence.

Again, we don’t really know the state of Nicodemus’s faith at this point. Was he still a seeker just pleading for a full hearing for Jesus? Was he speaking of his own journey, of his own personal investigation of the claims of Christ? We cannot say. But he shows courage in standing up to the crowd. Months later, Jesus would not get a fair hearing from the very ruling body, the Sanhedrin, that Nicodemus served with such distinction.

Integrity and wealth

In the Christmas story, we meet an unknown man named Joseph who helped care for Jesus in his birth. In the Easter story, we meet another unknown man named Joseph who helps care for Jesus in his death.

Joseph of Arimathea shows up in every gospel account of Jesus’ death. He is described by Matthew as a “rich man” and a “disciple of Jesus” (Matt. 27:57–60). Mark describes him as a “prominent member” of the Sanhedrin and someone who was “waiting for the kingdom of God” (Mark 15:42–46). Luke calls Joseph “a good and upright man,” a “member of the Council” who didn’t agree with their decision to seek Jesus’ death (Luke 23:50–51). John calls him a “disciple of Jesus” who kept his faith secret due to fear of his fellow religious leaders (John 19:38).

Joseph’s hometown was the Judean village of Arimathea, a town in the hilly region of Ephraim, 20 miles northwest of Jerusalem. Some scholars think this was also the hometown of Samuel, Israel’s celebrated prophet and priest.

The gospel writers are clear that Joseph, like Job, was known for both his integrity and his wealth. This is a good reminder that riches and righteousness are not always mutually exclusive. God often calls the poor and ignoble of this world, but that doesn’t preclude him from calling wealthy Christians to use their means for the kingdom of God. Joseph was one of those men.

Like every faithful Pharisee, he was looking for the kingdom of God, but Mark’s gospel tells us that while many of his peers found that “kingdom” in obedience to the law and personal piety, Joseph saw the fulfillment of those kingdom promises in Jesus. But as a Sanhedrin member, he had to keep his allegiance a secret.

Unlikely allies

The lives of Nicodemus and Joseph converged as they became unlikely actors in God’s redemptive drama. These two had a lot in common as Pharisees on a Sadducee-dominated Sanhedrin. Pharisees were minorities among Israel’s elite leadership, even as they were the majority sect among the people.

We can imagine how Nicodemus, Joseph, and other Pharisees on the council must have winced at the elitism of their peers and fought for the voice of the people among the corruption and self-dealings of the leadership class. Pharisees resisted the worldliness of the Greco-Roman culture and loathed their Roman
occupiers. They wanted Israel to live up to its calling by God to be a distinct people. They eagerly awaited the kingdom of God and the resurrection at the end of the age. The Sadducees were much more sophisticated, preferring accommodation with the Romans, even purchasing power through corruption and backroom deals. They held the seats of power, including the chief priest roles. And they rejected belief in miracles and the afterlife.

But it was Jesus, even more than the Sanhedrin, who would bring Nicodemus and Joseph close. To believe in this itinerant rabbi and his claims to be the Son of God put them at odds even with their Pharisee brethren. We can’t imagine the wrestling in their souls as they straddled their identity as proud Pharisees and the tug of the Spirit on their hearts as they investigated the claims of Jesus. These two men, strong in integrity and righteousness, could not escape the conclusion that would put them at odds with their synagogue, their families, and their community.

But how providential of God to have Nicodemus and Joseph find each other. We can imagine the hallway conversations and the late-night sessions discussing Jesus. And we can then imagine the terrible discomfort each would feel as Jesus was arrested and stood trial before their august body. Did they push back among other members of the Sanhedrin? Did they reiterate Nicodemus’s plea that his fellow religious leaders resist the rush to judgment and give Jesus a fair hearing? Luke tells us Joseph disagreed with the decision, but how strongly did they voice that dissent, and were they silenced?

How powerless these two powerful men must have felt! Yet what they couldn’t know and didn’t yet understand was that Jesus’ march to the cross was not really the work of the Sanhedrin.

Going public

Somewhere between the trial before the Sanhedrin and Jesus’ crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus made a decision to take their private faith public with an extraordinary gesture. Perhaps exhausted by the long days, disillusioned by their fellow Pharisees’ embrace of injustice, or grieving the loss of the one upon whom they’d rested their messianic hopes, they decided to give Jesus in his death what Israel had refused him in his life: acknowledgment as King. He would be buried not in an empty field but in a rich man’s tomb, fulfilling the words of the prophet Isaiah (Isa. 53:9).

So Joseph requested permission from Pilate, the Roman governor, to take Jesus’ body off the cross. The request caught Pilate by surprise. Typically, a criminal would be dumped into an empty grave or pauper’s field, buried ignominiously under a pile of rocks. So this was highly unusual. Perhaps Pilate was relieved that this Jesus problem was finally taken care of. But more than that, he was probably surprised to see a member of the Sanhedrin standing before him, willing to risk position and reputation to give an enemy of the state, one convicted of treason and insurrection, a king’s burial.

There were many important considerations for Joseph and Nicodemus and for the women who accompanied them to the burial of Jesus. It was important not only to get the body off the cross but also to bury it quickly before sundown and the start of Sabbath on Passover week, when work had to cease. Joseph’s tomb made sense as a burial spot, likely near Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified, but outside the city walls.

Both Joseph and Nicodemus made great sacrifices—Joseph in giving up his tomb and Nicodemus in paying for costly burial spices and ointments. John 19:39 says it was 75 pounds, an extraordinary amount, reminiscent of Mary’s extravagant display of washing Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume (12:3).

Peeling Jesus’ bloody body off the cross and carrying him the distance to the tomb was a difficult task. He had to be carefully wrapped in bandages and anointed with both myrrh as a preservative and aloes and perfumes to minimize the stench of decomposition. This was an act of love for Joseph and Nicodemus: two high-ranking religious officials stooping low and exhausting themselves to honor their Lord. You imagine their friends, their families, wondering why these two men of stature would take such care for a rejected Messiah, a despised enemy of Rome.

We can’t know exactly what they were thinking as they performed this thankless task—whether, for instance, fear and doubt were creeping into their hearts. But we know that their private faith, the secret they whispered to each other in the halls of Jerusalem, would now be public.

Quiet shouts

It’s easy to wonder why Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were so quiet about their faith. But I think this perspective is unfair and shortsighted. Courage looks different on different people and in different situations.

At times Jesus did not speak or move about openly, knowing his enemies were seeking him but that his time had not yet come. There are situations where prudence is the best witness: Think of Christians in closed countries, working to slowly plant seeds of gospel witness. Or Christians in prominent leadership roles who must weigh their words in order to steward their influence. This isn’t always cowardice. Sometimes we need a Dietrich Bonhoeffer faith, willing to suffer death for our convictions. But other times we need a Brother Andrew faith, stealthily working underground to advance God’s mission.

This is hard to comprehend in an age when we think every thought has to be expressed all the time on every medium. Public proclamation is important, but so is the need to “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life” (1 Thess. 4:11) and to be “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19).

Nicodemus and Joseph showed courage when it mattered, and not a moment too soon. Their inclusion in the Easter story shows us how God works in mysterious ways to accomplish his purposes in the world; it shows the gospel’s power to work in the most surprising places. The Sanhedrin seemed the last place to find disciples of Jesus. Even as the kingdom of God was moving among the poor and the outcast, it was also moving among the powerful, in the very councils that wrote his death sentence, flashing pinpricks of light into a dark world.

Some of the most important evidence for Jesus’ resurrection would be gathered by members of the very body that sent him to the cross. Nicodemus and Joseph both saw him physically dead, a lifeless corpse leaking blood and water. And they buried him in a prominent place where nobody could mistake the miracle, so much so that Jesus’ enemies had to bribe the Roman soldiers assigned to guard Jesus to lie about it (Matt. 28:11–15).

God used Nicodemus and Joseph in creating the most important apologetic of the Christian faith. Without the empty tomb, we are, to quote Paul, “of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15:19, KJV). The secret disciples, by their quiet acts of faithfulness, shouted the good news of God’s redemptive love to the world.

This is an excerpt from The Characters of Easter by Daniel Darling available today from Moody Publishers. Mar 23, 2024

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Joe Rogan Said What?

I don’t follow Joe Rogan, a popular podcaster, but this past week, Rogan said the following on his podcast:

“The problem with living in a secular society … that has a lot of people who are atheists, who have no belief system … is that you find a belief system and that a lot of these people that call themselves atheists [have] subscribed to the religion of ‘woke.’ You know, their god is equity and inclusiveness. Their god is this ideology that they think you have to subscribe to.

“And that’s why it’s spooky. Human beings seem to have a very strong desire for some sort of order and form and some sort of pattern that they can follow, which seems to be the right way to go. And they can be led. They can be led by cults. They can be led by groups of people. They can be led by, you know, intolerant governments and evil armies and corrupt politicians. They can be led.

“But I think as time rolls on, people are going to understand the need to have some sort of divine structure to things, some sort of belief in the sanctity of love and of truth. And a lot of that comes from religion. A lot of people’s moral compass and the guidelines that they’ve followed to live a just and righteous life have come from religion. We need Jesus. For real.”

While I don't know what, if any relationship he has with Jesus, but what Mr. Rogan said is precisely what Christians have been saying for 2,000 years.

First, as Pascal inferred, a vacuum is always filled. Everyone who claims to have no belief system will, by default, create a new one. History is replete with the lesson of Robespierre: All who deny God will inevitably declare themselves to be God. Or, as St. Paul told the first-century Romans, everyone either “worships the Creator or worships the created.”

Human beings, by definition, as Mr. Rogan says, “have a strong desire for some sort of order and form.” If none exists, we create it. Chaos cannot sustain itself. It is always corrected by the rule of government over every aspect of our lives or the rule of God in our hearts.

Second, people will be led. From time immemorial, we see that men and women will inevitably follow the leader. Whether it be the coercion of “governments and evil armies,” as suggested by Mr. Rogan, or the creeds of the church, we will all “choose this day whom we will serve.” This is human nature. Bob Dylan told us we are all “going to serve somebody.” “It may be the devil or it may be the Lord,” but we will be led.

Third, human beings are the imago Dei; we are not the imago dog. We are made in the image of God, and as such, we alone, as Mr. Rogan suggests, understand the “sanctity of truth.”

This is an exclusive human capacity. Dogs don’t argue or debate. Animals have no understanding of the difference between honesty and deceit. God’s thumbprint of moral awareness is uniquely stamped on the human soul.

This alone explains what Mr. Rogan calls our desire to “live a just and righteous life.” This is what separates us from the rest of creation. We are made in God’s image. Nothing else around us is.

Fourth, we need Jesus. Our dilemma is that despite standing alone as bearing God’s likeness in our hearts, minds and souls, we are broken. Our rebellion against our Creator has brought a universal curse on all people, in all times and in all places. Evidence of this is rife in the daily news.

G.K. Chesterton said nearly 100 years ago that “original sin is the only doctrine that’s been empirically validated by 2,000 years of human history.” All we need to see the proof that everyone is a hopeless sinner is to read today’s news.

Joe Rogan is absolutely right: We all need something to believe in. All of us can and will be led. We all yearn for truth. And every one of us “needs Jesus.”

But which Jesus is it that we need? Is it the one that looks like the God we see in the Bible, or is it the one that looks like the God we see in the mirror, you know, the “affirming” one rather than the great “I am” who said we “must be born again” and to “go and sin no more”?

C.S. Lewis once instructed: “Either [Jesus] was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.”

The Jesus we all need is neither a liar nor a lunatic, but precisely who he said he was and proved by his resurrection: He is our Lord, our savior and our king. He is the Alpha and Omega and the beginning and the end. He is the Word made flesh and dwelling among us. He was there at the “beginning of days,” and he will judge us at the end of them. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through him. This is the “for real” Jesus that we all need. Without him, our culture is doomed, and we are all lost.

• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host.

Why is the Gospel the Most Important Thing for You in 2024?

In the midst of a world filled with darkness, despair and desperation, the word gospel literally means
"good news." In fact it is not only good news but the best news possible - God graciously, saves hell-bound sinners like you and me in the person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ.

There's a real sense in which we could say the gospel is Jesus Christ, and that's what Romans 1, 3, 4, and 5 teaches, that the gospel concerns the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

So the gospel concerns the entrance of Christ into this world on a mission of salvation. He's come to seek and to save that which is lost. He's come to lay down His life for ransom for many.

So to understand the gospel, it is that Jesus was born of a virgin, that He was born under the law. He obeyed the law at every point such that in our disobedience to the law, Christ has now obeyed for us in our place, and He has met all the demands of the law.

When He went to the cross, He suffered the curse of the law because of our lawbreaking. And on the cross, Him who knew no sin, God made to be sin for us. All the sins of all those who would ever believe upon Christ were transferred to Him as He hung upon the cross.

And Jesus propitiated the righteous anger of God. Jesus reconciled sinful man to Holy God. Jesus redeemed us or bought us out of the slave market of sin. All of this was accomplished by His substitutionary death in our place upon the cross and when He said, "It is finished," tetelestai; that means "paid in full." He had paid in full our sin debt.

He was taken down from the cross, buried in a borrowed tomb; on the third day He was raised from the dead, which validated that the death He died was a sufficient payment for our sins accepted by the Father.

He ascended to the right hand of God, where He is now seated next to the Majesty on high. And the Bible says whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Everyone needs to be saved, and we might ask, Saved from what? The answer is, saved from God. Saved from the wrath of a holy, righteous God, and there's only One who can save from the wrath of God, and that is God Himself. His mercy and His grace saves us from His wrath.

The gospel is the free offer of salvation through the work of Christ to those who have no merit of their own by which to receive this gospel. It is offered as a free gift, and it can only be received with the empty hand of faith.

Faith alone in Christ alone, offered by the grace of God alone. That in a nutshell is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

By Dr. Steve Lawson

What Makes the Gospel Good News?

The word gospel literally means "good news." It is the good news of salvation that God has provided
in the person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ.

There's a real sense in which we could say the gospel is Jesus Christ, and that's what Romans 1, 3, 4, and 5 teaches, that the gospel concerns the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

So the gospel concerns the entrance of Christ into this world on a mission of salvation. He's come to seek and to save that which is lost. He's come to lay down His life for ransom for many.

So to understand the gospel, it is that Jesus was born of a virgin, that He was born under the law. He obeyed the law at every point such that in our disobedience to the law, Christ has now obeyed for us in our place, and He has met all the demands of the law.

When He went to the cross, He suffered the curse of the law because of our lawbreaking. And on the cross, Him who knew no sin, God made to be sin for us. All the sins of all those who would ever believe upon Christ were transferred to Him as He hung upon the cross.

And Jesus propitiated the righteous anger of God. Jesus reconciled sinful man to Holy God. Jesus redeemed us or bought us out of the slave market of sin. All of this was accomplished by His substitutionary death in our place upon the cross and when He said, "It is finished," tetelestai; that means "paid in full." He had paid in full our sin debt.

He was taken down from the cross, buried in a borrowed tomb; on the third day He was raised from the dead, which validated that the death He died was a sufficient payment for our sins accepted by the Father.

He ascended to the right hand of God, where He is now seated next to the Majesty on high. And the Bible says whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Everyone needs to be saved, and we might ask, Saved from what? The answer is, saved from God. Saved from the wrath of God, and there's only One who can save from the wrath of God, and that is God Himself. His mercy and His grace saves us from His wrath.

The gospel is the free offer of salvation through the work of Christ to those who have no merit of their own by which to receive this gospel. It is offered as a free gift, and it can only be received with the empty hand of faith.

Faith alone in Christ alone, offered by the grace of God alone. That in a nutshell is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

by Dr. Steve Lawson, Ligonier Ministries

Riley Gaines Credits Faith, Family for Courage to Speak Out on Transgender Athletes

The question remains nearly two years after Riley Gaines surfaced seemingly out of nowhere to embody the national resistance to the transgender sports agenda: Why her?

Gaines wasn’t even in the same conference as Lia Thomas during the transgender athlete’s record-smashing 2022 collegiate run. They didn’t swim against each other until the last meet of the season. By that time, hundreds of women had shared a pool, a deck or a locker room with Thomas.

None of them was willing to risk public vilification by openly challenging the fairness of competing against a biological male, yet Gaines did. She said she couldn’t have made the decision without the support of her family and her faith in God.

“I’ve thought about this before: Why was I different? Why weren’t more people willing to say it?” she told The Washington Times in an interview. “I think, one, having a very strong family foundation has been pretty monumental in my life. I have two parents who love each other and always taught me to do the right thing, regardless of what the consequences were.”

Both of her parents were also standout athletes. Her father, Brad Gaines, was a running back who played at Vanderbilt University and then for nine years in the NFL. Her mother, Telisha Gaines, played Division I softball at Austin Peay.

“They understand the value of playing sports, and I think that transcended into the life lessons and characteristics they instilled in me,” said Gaines, a 12-time All-American swimmer at the University of Kentucky.

She grew up in Gallatin, Tennessee, and attended the Old Hickory Church of Christ. She described her upbringing as “very spiritual.”

She said she had no doubt that her opposition to male-born athletes competing against girls and women was “objectively the right thing in terms of biological reality.”

“But I also understood in terms of biblical truth that God created only man and woman, and our God doesn’t make mistakes,” she said. “[The NCAA position] dissented from biblical truth. That made me feel compelled to speak out as well.”

Her faith has also helped keep her grounded as she deals with sudden prominence. She appears regularly on conservative media outlets such as Fox News and speaks on college campuses. She has testified before Congress and state legislatures on fairness in women’s sports.

At 23, she hosts a podcast, “Gaines on Girls,” produced by OutKick. Her show features interviews with guests such as former ESPN anchor Sage Steele, policy experts, scientists and athletes challenging the rules that allow male-born athletes in female sports based on gender identity.

“I get to talk to policy experts, I get to ask the questions that a lot of people are thinking but not a lot of people have the opportunity to ask,” Gaines said. “That’s been really cool for me and I think really influential for people who listen. Here are the things people have been dying to know but just haven’t had the opportunity to ask.”

The Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute helps train “courageous leaders to protect women and America.” She also serves as an ambassador for the Independent Women’s Forum.

Last week, The Daily Signal, the news and opinion arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, named her as its “Problematic Woman of the Year.”

“Although it’s hard to pick just one, few female leaders acted with more integrity and reached more Americans with a message of common sense than swimmer Riley Gaines,” the Dec. 21 article said.

Drones over her house

That celebrity has come with pitfalls. Her college appearances routinely attract noisy protesters. She was chased by a hostile student mob this year at San Francisco State University, where security hustled her into a classroom for protection for four hours.

“The list goes on. I’ve had drones flying above my house. I’ve been spit on, I’ve had glass bottles thrown at me, drinks poured on me. Just crazy,” she said. “But I think why I’m able to do that with — with a smile on my face and feeling incredibly lighthearted — is because as a Christian and as someone who reads the word, we already know who wins this battle.”

Gaines was a college senior planning to attend dental school after graduation when she arrived in Atlanta in March 2022 for the NCAA Division I women’s swimming championships. The event changed the trajectory of her life.

She had never met Thomas, a University of Pennsylvania student who swam for three years on the men’s team before transitioning. Both qualified for the finals in the 200-yard freestyle. Thomas had won the 500 freestyle by defeating two Olympic silver medalists, Emma Weyant and Erica Sullivan.

Gaines’ critics often accuse her of being a sore loser, but she didn’t lose to Thomas. They tied for fifth. The NCAA official gave the only fifth-place trophy to Thomas for the podium shot. Gaines was handed the sixth-place trophy and later mailed a fifth-place duplicate.

What happened next set her apart. During the season, some Penn swimmers had complained about competitive fairness but always under the cloak of anonymity. Gaines and another swimmer who attended the championships, Virginia Tech’s Reka Gyorgy, became the first to use their names while speaking out.

Gaines made waves shortly after the finals by declaring in an interview with The Daily Wire that the NCAA “turned their backs” on female swimmers to “appease a small minority.”

“What I realized is people were desperate to hear this,” said Gaines. “Especially on college campuses, it seems as if people are hungry for the truth. That’s not a big revelation. But someone had to be willing to say that ‘the emperor wears no clothes.’”

She was soon deluged with interview and speaking requests. She faced a choice: Stick to her plan to attend dental school or focus on advocating for single-sex women’s sports.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Gaines said. “I saw the importance behind this fight, but I felt conflicted, knowing I was giving up a safe and secure option.”

She contacted the dental school to discuss her options and was stunned when program officials offered to hold her spot indefinitely.

“They said, ‘Understand that dental school will always be there, but the relevance and importance behind what you’re fighting for might not,’” Gaines said. “It felt like God was winking at me. That was kind of the reassurance I needed to pursue this.”

Given her high public profile — she has more than 1.5 million followers across her social media platforms — Gaines has been mentioned as a candidate for public office. For the time being, however, she is holding out for a career in dentistry.

“If this issue could be solved tomorrow, I would like to go back to being a dentist, because who in the world would ever want to voluntarily put themselves in politics? Certainly not me,” Gaines said. “I would have to really feel God tugging on me to fully submerge myself into that space.”

Washington Times December 28, 2023

What Does It Mean to Be a Holy Man?

Across the left-right spectrum today, we find commentators chattering away about the crisis of
manhood—a quest for significance and identity among men who seem lost and lonely in our strange new world. In Of Boys and Men, cultural observer Richard Reeves calls out the negative views often associated with masculinity. “The problem with men,” he writes, “is typically framed as a problem of men. . . . It is men who must be fixed, one man or boy at a time.”

Many today seem to view masculinity as a problem rather than a gift. Masculinity is a word now synonymous with descriptors like “toxic” and “problematic” instead of a glorious and courageous calling—leadership that comes from an inner sense of security and steadfastness.

Questions for Our Time

What happens in a society where markers of manhood, the passing from adolescence into adulthood, become obscured, where men stagger forward without mentors or friends?

What happens to a society that pathologizes competition, achievement, roughness, and the aggression required to protect the weak or pursue what’s good?

How does it make sense to push back against toxic expressions of masculinity without a clear picture of actual manliness, a positive vision that shatters the caricatures?

Role of the Church

In the third episode of season 2 of my podcast Reconstructing Faith, “Boys to Men, for Mission,” I point out how some churches seem to have fallen for a self-centered script of manhood, dressing up all sorts of wrongheaded, worldly notions of masculinity with Christian wrapping paper so as to make the church more attractive to men.

Meanwhile, other churches can rail so much against wrongheaded notions that they fail to offer a better vision, leaving men with the impression they’ve got to sacrifice something of their true, God-given masculinity at the door to be a faithful Christian. As if imitating Jesus makes you somehow less of a man.

The church could take a different path, giving our ailing culture a vision of a positive, glorious, biblical masculinity that's in harmony with man’s nature. Yes, masculinity gets twisted and distorted by sin, but there’s a real and enduring good there—an aim to pursue. If the church is going to respond wisely to the challenges facing men today, we’ll need to get a better picture of what masculinity is aiming for.

Characteristics of a Holy Man

John Seel and I have sparred on different topics over the years, yet even amid disagreement, I always come away from our discussions sharpened. John has been pondering the crisis of masculinity in our society, and I found his recent article with Jeremy Schurke compelling. They're doing constructive work as they think out loud about what it means to be a holy man.

Not everything in their list of 18 characteristics applies only to men, of course, but I appreciate their tentative proposal—their desire to paint a picture of a consecrated man of God on a mission. We're going to need more imagination, not less, as we seek to offer a compelling vision for Christian men in the future. I've summed up the characteristics below.

• A Holy Man possesses wild eyes. As a citizen of another world, he takes initiative as a difference maker—unsettled, yet with an entrepreneurial drive that sees beyond what is to what can be.
• A Holy Man moves mysteriously. His pervasive dependence on God and his otherworldly orientation demonstrates he’s “set apart,” or as was said of Dallas Willard, “he lives in another time zone.”
• A Holy Man reveres the sacred everywhere. Life is an adventure of holistic not compartmentalized discipleship, with the purity of heart to “will one thing” (as Kierkegaard said).
• A Holy Man establishes rituals, disciplines, and traditions. He gives attention to daily routines and details, recognizing how habits shape his life and character.
• A Holy Man walks a spiritual pilgrimage. He trusts that his destiny as a man, joined to Jesus his King, is a story unfolding by the sovereign hand of God.
• A Holy Man abides in God. He seeks a consistent and transformative friendship with God, who provides power for the Christian life.
• A Holy Man seeks a spiritual father. He deliberately chooses close friends and a mentor—all of whom speak into his priorities and direction.
• A Holy Man fulfills a life mission. His life is an ongoing answering to God's call, direction, and authority over him. His life mission is to uncover God's calling and faithfully walk in it, exercising godly authority in the spheres where he has influence.
• A Holy Man leaves a legacy. He invests time, talent, and treasure in and for others, seeing his life within the larger story of God's kingdom advancing.
• A Holy Man seeks kindred spirits. He draws close to others who call him up to his best self and spur him on as he experiences the burden and responsibility of his calling.
• A Holy Man catalyzes a tribe. He relies on others by creating a dense network of people who share in the causes that animate his life.
• A Holy Man is a savage servant. He leads by serving, putting others first, sacrificing himself, and committing his best to a team.
• A Holy Man fosters emotional intelligence. He works effectively with others through increased self-awareness, empathy, and interpersonal sensitivity.
• A Holy Man burns with the fire of a poet and walks with a limp. He ignites the imaginations of others, casting vision while being honest about his failings, leading from a place of love and suffering.
• A Holy Man is a perpetual student. He embarks on a quest for knowledge and wisdom that expand the mind and heart.
• A Holy Man takes his body seriously. He’s comfortable in his own skin—committed to taking care of his body, in pursuit of the virtue of chastity, determined to treat others with honor in a world where people are too often objectified.
• A Holy Man is consciously countercultural. He appreciates the goodness of creation and mourns the distortion of sin, and he's willing to take a lonely, courageous stand for truth, goodness, and beauty.
• A Holy Man becomes a saint. He’s committed to a lifelong process of growth, formation, and development, being consciously set apart for God as a poet, warrior, and monk. He has a vision of becoming like Jesus by being an apprentice of Jesus—to walk in his ways and love as he loves.

This is a good start in painting a portrait of a man committed to Jesus Christ. We do well to imagine a positive vision of manhood; to appreciate and encourage men in the silent yet heavy burdens they carry; to paint a picture of fatherhood, both physically and spiritually; and to help men step into their inheritance as sons of God who carry the mantle and high calling to serve the world that Jesus gave his life for.

Men must aim at this vision: to love our neighbors and fight for their good, to love our wives self-sacrificially and without restraint, to instruct our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, to set aside the sins that entangle us and run the race with endurance, trusting that the Lord will help us leave a legacy for those who come behind us.

 

By Trevin Wax is vice president of research and resource development at the North American Mission Board and a visiting professor at Cedarville University. A former missionary to Romania, Trevin is a regular columnist at The Gospel Coalition and has contributed to The Washington Post, Religion News Service, World, and Christianity Today, which named him one of 33 millennials shaping the next generation of evangelicals.

This is a Football! Remembering the Fundamentals!

In July of 1961, the Green Bay Packers gathered for the first day of training camp. The previous season had ended in heartbreak; they had lost a late lead in the NFL Championship against the Philadelphia Eagles.

The minds of the Packer players had no doubt been thinking about this brutal loss for the entire post-season, pondering again and again how certain victory could’ve been snatched from their grasp. They dreamed of how they might advance their game to another level and start working on a new program to get them ready to reclaim their spot at the top of the NFL.

As the team assembled for a new season, head coach Vince Lombardi shared a surprising lesson with this group who, just months prior, had come within minutes of winning the sport’s biggest prize.

“Gentlemen,” he said, holding a pigskin in his right hand, “this is a football.”

His biographer explained, “[Lombardi] took nothing for granted. . . assuming the players were blank slates who carried over no knowledge from the year before.”

Remembering the fundamentals paid off. Six months later, Green Bay beat the New York Giants 37–0 to win the NFL Championship. The Apostle Peter, in Lombardi-like fashion, wrote in his second letter: “I think it is right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder” (2 Pet. 1:13, emphasis added).

That which was learned only once will soon be assumed and will one day be forgotten (Heb. 2:1–2).

The great Reformer Martin Luther was asked once by a man in his congregation after his Sunday sermon, "Why do you preach the gospel every Sunday?" Luther responded, "Because your keep forgetting it."

As Christians, we need to consistently revisit the basics of the faith, keep remembering them and rehearsing them to ourselves.

Brothers, here is what is of "FIRST IMPORTANCE" of those basics of our faith:

1 Corinthians 15:1-8
"Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me."

Here's How We Can Think About and Share the Gospel:

“The gospel is not just the diving board off which we jump into Christianity—it’s the swimming pool in which we swim.” – J.D. Greear

"Our need is not self-improvement or self-esteem or self-renovation. We need salvation. We need to be saved from the wrath of God." - Dave Brown

That is precisely what the gospel promises.“We need to hear the Gospel every day, because we forget it every day.” - Martin Luther

“Every day we must preach the gospel to ourselves and remind ourselves: “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.” - Derek Thomas

"The gospel is not just the ABCs but the A to Z of the Christian life. It is inaccurate to think the gospel is what saves non-Christians, and then Christians mature by trying hard to live according to biblical principles. It is more accurate to say that we are saved by believing the gospel, and then we are transformed in every part of our minds, hearts and lives by believing the gospel more and more deeply as life goes on." - Tim Keller

"The Gospel is that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died." - Tim Keller

“Christianity isn't true because it's relevant. It's relevant because it's true.” Tim Keller

“The gospel is not something you can just tack on to another worldview. On the contrary, it makes you rethink everything from the ground up, from the center out.” - Michael Horton

“We are saved by faith alone, but not by faith which is alone.” That is, we are saved, not by anything we do, but by grace. Yet if we have truly understood and believed the gospel, it will change what we do and how we live.” - Deitrich Bonhoeffer 

“Gospel is not good advice to men but good news about Christ; not an invitation to do anything but a declaration of what God has done.”  - John Stott

“On the cross, God treats Jesus as if He had lived your life so that He can treat you as if you had lived His life.” – John MacArthur

“The gospel is only good news when we understand the bad news.” —R.C. Sproul

“This “good news” is not moral improvement or a Christian society or any political system—whether democratic or totalitarian, capitalist or socialist. It’s the announcement that in his incarnation, obedient life, sacrificial death, and resurrection Jesus Christ has accomplished redemption from sin, death, and hell and reconciled sinners with God.” – Michael Horton

"Whenever and wherever the doctrines of free grace and justification by faith have prevailed in the Christian Church, and according to the degree of clearness with which they have been enforced, the practical duties of Christianity have flourished in the same proportion. Wherever they have declined, or been tempered with the reasonings and expedients of men, either from a well-meant, though mistaken fear, lest they should be abused, or from a desire to accommodate the gospel, and render it more palatable to the depraved taste of the world, the consequence has always been, an equal declension in practice. So long as the gospel of Christ is maintained without adulteration, it if found sufficient for every valuable purpose; but when the wisdom of man is permitted to add to the perfect work of God, a wide door is opened for innumerable mischiefs." - John Newton (1769)