O Great God! from T4G

This is one of the songs from T4G that has remained stuck in my head:

T4G2010 -- O Great God from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

 

You can find the lyrics and back story here. 

T4G Reflections: My Broken Prayer, All I Have is Christ

I forget who said it.  Honestly, I forget what they said.  All I remember is asking myself asking one question. What am I unwilling to lose?  Quickly rising up in my soul was the answer: my life.  Of course that means a ton of different things.  It means I have had a death grip on trying to attain a certain outcome for my life.  It means I have foolish, yet tight fisted, reign on what I am willing to do and not do in my walk with Christ.  I struggle with pride, self-righteousness, and just outright complacency. 

All of this was simmering in my heart for a day.  Wednesday evening during the first song Bob Kauflin said, “all I have is Christ” in one of his songs.  This jolted my heart.  I had trouble focusing on the next couple of songs because I let (rather was prodded to let) these words toss around in my soul.  Then he played this song:

That video was from a NA Conference not T4G.  But the lyrics are the same. 

Then John Piper preached essentially what this song meant.  You can watch the sermon if you like, but I will attempt to summarize.  Piper’s text was Luke 18.  He pointed out the self-righteousness of the Pharisee.  It was not that he was trusting in his own works and merits.  The Pharisee was trusting in a God wrought righteousness in his own life.  The problem, said Piper, is that he was not trusting on Christ—the tax collector was.  He brought out Philippians 3 and Paul essentially was the Pharisee and now he is the tax collector.  Piper further gave the example of the Rich Young Ruler—one thing he lacked: let go of money, let it fall to the poor, and cling to Christ.  The one thing he lacked was Christ.  In other words the song of the believer truly is All I Have is Christ.  Watch the Piper video if you want, but please do not neglect to read my closing comments:

T4G 2010 -- Session 6 -- John Piper from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

God used this song and this sermon to renew a spark of the gospel in my heart.  During this time I found myself praying that the Lord would break me.  Break me of every vestige of self-righteousness that I may cling to Christ alone.  Break me of a foolishness that wants to cling to my life. 

If you follow this blog, or are my friend and read this, remind me in a couple of months when I’m “broken” about this prayer and where my brokenness stems from.  Lord make me a gospel man!