Can I Brag On My Lord?

In celebration of the release of my book, The Good Life, here’s the official video for “One Sixteen,” from my newest album, also called The Good Life.

Here’s a recent sermon I preached on Jeremiah 31:33. My main points were:

I. God Is Working Internationally

II. God Is Working Internally

III. God Is Working Interpersonally

IV. God Is At Work

The book comes out October 1, but you can download a sample chapter at TheGoodLifeTheBook.com, and you can pre-order the book here.

I watched most of the political conventions these last two weeks. The public speaker in me couldn’t help but over-analyze the messages and oratory skills of the candidates and their supporters. Every person on that stage tried to persuade you with personal stories and/or big promises.

I’ll admit, some of their desires were noble, but most of the speeches felt calculated, empty, and purely political- to me at least. Some of the talking points were straight up wrong too. But debating platforms isn’t the point of this post.

One of the things I realized was that while the parties were trying to sell you their candidates, they were also trying to sell you their worldviews. According to them, material propserity is the promised land, and their party wants to be your Moses. In their view, the good life is getting wealthy when you work hard, and their candidate is the savior who can take you there.

Now there’s nothing sinful about wealth. And being rewarded for hard work is a good thing, but that can’t be where our hope lies. Wealth shouldn’t be our end goal, it should be a means to a greater end. We also can’t afford to trust in a mere man to save the day.

Candidates can make life easier for us on this earth (when their ideas actually work), but they can’t be our ultimate hope. They can not rid our world of all suffering, or bring perfect peace. Only Jesus can do that. And He will.

Please don’t misunderstand me. This is not an encouragement for you to ignore politics. Personally, I plan to pay close attention to the presidential race, and I’ll try to make an informed decision about who to vote for in November. I encourage you to do the same. I’m not saying don’t vote, I’m saying don’t buy into the lies.

The good life is not material prosperity, and political candidates aren’t stable enough to build your life upon. The good life is living by faith in a good God and building your life on Him.

Here’s a sermon I preached recently on Psalm 95:10-11. My 3 points were simple:

I. Sin Provokes God’s Anger

II. Sin is an Alernate Path

III. Sin keeps us from God’s rest

I pray this is an encouragement to you

The book releases on October 1, but you can pre-order it now here.

Trip Lee on “Beautiful Life” from Desiring God on Vimeo.

The first song I wrote for my most recent album, “The Good Life” was a song called “Beautiful Life.” Desiring God asked me about that song and my heart behind it. Here’s their entire blog post.

And here are the lyrics to the song, which features V. Rose:

Hook:
Beautiful Life Inside 
Living Moving Breathing
So Let Hope Arise
God knew what He was doing
When He gave
Beautiful Beautiful Life

Verse 1:
Dear sister, I hear the place you at
I know it ain’t nothing easy bout going through that
There’s a baby in your womb, but you wasn’t trying do that
You’d take it all back if you knew that, but you ain’t have a clue that
That time with your boyfriend, that late night
When you thought you was making love, that you would make life
And now it’s feeling unfair, man it ain’t like
You ain’t got a life, shoot, the timing really ain’t right
Can’t quite tell you that I understand your pain
But I know you shouldn’t feel discouraged and ashamed
And I know that baby in your stomach ain’t a game
He’s got a heart beat, he’s bout to grow a little brain
He’s dependent on his mama, God already knows his name
You’re made in God’s image and that baby is the same, give him life

Hook:
Beautiful Life Inside 
Living Moving Breathing
So Let Hope Arise
God knew what He was doing
When He gave
Beautiful Beautiful Life
Beautiful Beautiful Life
When He Gave 
Beautiful Beautiful Life
Beautiful Life
Let it Live 

Verse 2:
Dear brother, I know you probably caught off guard
By that seed in her stomach, so your heart ache’s hard
Feeling trapped, like prisoners behind those bars
The hands been dealt, but you don’t wanna take those cards
Homie stop, and think about the choice
That baby in her womb, she ain’t really got a voice
So she really needs her daddy, to love her and rejoice
She’s a blessing from the Lord, she don’t need to be destroyed
Don’t abandon her mama, love her and support her
She’s in pain now too, she needs someone there for her
But don’t let her hurt your baby girl, alive in the womb
‘Cause homie you’ll be looking in her eyes pretty soon, 
Hey don’t get me wrong, look I agree that we should give women rights
But that goes for unborn women too, give them life!

Hook

Verse 3:
Dear friends, I know this probably hurts
For those of you who wish you would have gave that baby birth
But it’s too late now, ‘cause your child ain’t around
I know it hurts to your core, that guilt is weighing you down
But I’ve got Good News and some healing for your hurts
Christ Jesus came, He descended to the Earth
But He ain’t come for good people or even the just
He came into the world just for sinners like us
So yeah He’s really grieved when we take a baby’s life
‘Cause He made them, but He came to save us from our plight
He came shining light that He could save us from our night
He erases all the shame, homie He can make us right
Confess it and believe in the One who paid your cost
He died in your place, there’s forgiveness at the cross, He can give us life

Hook

Bridge:
Don’t be afraid
God Himself gave you life
He’ll be right there, right there, right there