The Parable of the Sports Fan

    I'm an avid sports fan. Baseball, basketball, football, and hockey - I follow them all. I have an app in my smartphone that gives me real-time updates with the scores, gives me instant game recap, and player statistics. All I ever watch on TV is a sporting event - regualr games, playoffs, championships, the World Series, the Super Bowl. I am elated when my team wins. I am deflated when my team loses. I know the players. I know who got traded, who got injured, and who got drafted. I love to look up individual player stats and team stats. I look up college recruiting websites and read about the most coveted high school recruits. I read the articles and op-eds at cnnsi.com and espn.com. I listen to sports talk on the radio while driving. I can talk sports with anyone - either at work or at parties. I am the typical, average sports fan.

    Martyn Lloyd -Jones observes,

Compare and contrast the typical average Christian with the typical average person of the world. The Christian claims that he is interested in spiritual things, and in the Kingdom of God and in a knowledge of God and of Christ. This is his claim. He says that he has faith and that is what faith means. Yet compare him with the average person who is interested in various games and the things that happen in the world of sport. You see the difference, there is nothing languid about the person who is interested in these things. Look at their excitement and their energy. Then look at the Christian by contrast, how languid he is, how apparently apologetic he is.

- Martyn Lloyd-Jones in Spiritual Depression

     If we are so easily pleased about inferior things in this world, how much more should we be delighted in God - the Creator of all things, the One whose glory is displayed by the skies above and by the creatures below. The God who gives us life. The God of grace. The loving and holy God who sends his Son Jesus Christ as to save us from our sins. The God who sends the Holy Spirit that leads us into all truth and makes us new.

    Pursuing pleasure in God is our highest calling. Maximizing our joy in God is what we were created for. We will be glorifying him by enjoying him forever. This is not hardcore Christian living. It's the norm.

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

-Psalm 16:11 (ESV)

John Piper said: "Quit being satisfied with little 2-percent yields of pleasure that get eaten up by the moths of inflation and the rust of death. Invest in the blue-chip, high-yield, divinely insured securities of heaven. Giving your life to material comforts and thrills is like throwing money down a rat hole. But a life invested in the labor of love yields dividends of joy unsurpassed and unending - even if it costs you your property and your life on this earth."