Larry Crabb
February 5, 2003
2:30 pm
Message Summary
Jesus saw people as pressured and wearied. So he said to those people, “Get away with me and you’ll recover your life.” A fierce battle rages within the soul of every living person, noted Larry Crabb during the first of his three afternoon Founder’s Week sessions. The battle concerns the competing desires for God against the second tier desires for anything else that would seemingly bring happiness.
Turning to Romans 7:5-6, Crabb emphasized that a “new way” for living really does exist. Using the pagan gods of the Old Testament, Crabb described Ba’al as the “god of cooperation” and the golden calf as the “god of convenience.” Today, a mixture of those false deities has created a god of religion, not the God of Christianity.
We’ve combined these [views of God] to come up with a pleasant and accessible view of the Christian life,” Crabb said. “Get it right and life will work.” Of course, since nobody can perfectly get it right, the phrase reduces to “get it reasonably right and life will work reasonably well.” Tragically, this life strategy promises joy but produces only pride for the properly successful or shame for the skewed.
Operating under that false premise leads to wrong life goals, namely pursuing blessings that we assume will bring joy. And the chase for those blessings supercedes our yearning to draw near to God. Crabb put it well: “The greatest evil is to put second thing desires in first place. So the greatest battle is to put first things in first place and second things in second place. And the greatest commitment is to recognize and indulge my passion for God.
Student Response
The question is haunting. Do I really want God? More than happiness? More than success? More than a blessed ministry and beautiful family? What if God withheld all those legitimate second place desires? Would I still want God just for himself and not for his blessing? The question is not easy. I picture Joseph sitting bored in an Egyptian prison or Job’s tears for his dead children wetting his burning boils. Would unmet dreams destroy my faith or, like those renowned men, let me “see God” (Job 42:5)? I hope I’d cling to God. So for now I’ll attempt to indulge him, praying with the popular praise song, “Above all else, give me yourself.
—Dale Harris, Senior, Pastoral Studies major