Audience of One taught by Teg during UTC Colorado 2011 week one.

John is the small groups pastor at Blueprint church in Atlanta. He has been on a basketball tour with AIA and he is teaching here on the parable of the lost sons.

2 peter 3:1-10

Sports are a gift from God—but we’ll waste this gift if we play for our own glory.

So how do we play sports for God’s glory and not our own?

This message provides a biblical worldview of sports so that we don't waste this gift. “I had the opportunity to glorify God in my sports,” C.J. writes, “and I fumbled it. I wasted my sports. You have the opportunity, by the grace of God, not to waste yours.”

The book of Esther is the only book in the Bible that does not mention God. Yet in reality we see God working behind the scenes in the smallest details to shape our lives, to call us to him, and to teach us the difference between what the world desires and what he desires. The world is obsessed with beauty and outward appearance and performance, but Jesus Christ loves us in spite of our flaws in order to make us beautiful.

Jesus tells his disciples to have private prayer lives. Using the disciplines of morning and evening prayer, we can process our lives before God and bring him our requests while being at peace with the outcome. This talk was given during a leadership training session at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, and includes suggestions concerning Bible study, meditation, and contemplation.

The cure for our self-absorption is an encounter with God. The real God is infinitely glorious, weighty, and beautiful. When God moves from being a concept to a reality, he changes our beliefs and priorities by displaying his beauty, man’s sinfulness, and purifying man by grace. Once changed, we can live new lives for him.

In the parable of the Prodigal Sons, Jesus redefines God as Father, redefines sin, and redefines salvation. We need the initiating love of the Father to learn to repent for something besides sins and to be moved by the cost of bringing us home.