Thoughts from "Team Hoyt"

At Men's BASIC at my church on Thursday morning we watched a video about Team Hoyt.

Please view HERE.

Listen to the father's words.  They are absurd.  They are irrational and counter-intuitive and they are full of gracious love and imputed accomplishment.

The father speaks of his son "competing" in these events.

The son speaks of how intensely he desires to give back to his father and serve him (if he was able).

The father does all of the work: runs, swims, bikes.  He does it ALL and yet he speaks of his wages as though the child were the one earning them.  He acts as though the medals should be placed around the son's neck and the garland upon his head. 

The father speaks graciously and extravagently of his son's accomplishments, but the son does nothing but enjoy the ride and adore his father all the while.

When did this synopsis transition from being solely about a father and son to a description of our Heavenly Father and His children by adoption through Jesus Christ?

The Gospel is the Good News that the Father has accomplished everything and that it cost Him dearly to do so.  And that in His great, lavish labor He has counted our frailty blessed and credited our meekness as deserving of a Kingdom. 

It is scandalous.  It is beyond reason.  It is beyond merit. It is imputed righteousness.

We all know that the child is merely a passenger in the boat, on the bike,and in the wheelchair.  To give him credit for completing a race is absurd.  And the father does so without blushing.

This is the Good News of God in Jesus Christ!

It is utter foolishness to those seeking wisdom and a stumbling block to those seeking to impress the Father by finishing the race on the vanity of their own merit.  Would that my soul be humbled to simply rest in the finished work of Christ and to place my sole confidence by grace through faith in the race He won.