For anyone interested my sermons from the Tenth Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia missions conference are now available in video format. Psalm 22 Individual’s Suffering and Salvation of the World - Part I and II
Enjoy! I welcome your comments or questions….
Videos -
I just wrote to the participants of the Lausanne YLG about Ted Haggard and the lessons we can learn. My prayer mentor responded with a quote from a friend of his who is in Ted Haggard’s church. I wanted to pass along one paragraph to you all from that email:
Many close to Ted are asking, “How could this happen?” Years ago I asked Jim Downing, one of the patriarchs of the Navigator work, “Why is it that so few men finish well?” His response was profound. He said, “They learn the possibility of being fruitful without being pure. God is slow to remove His hand on a man He has anointed. One day that man may sin, then experience God’s blessing. Then it happens again and again and he begins to believe that purity doesn’t matter. Eventually he becomes like a tree rotting inside that is eventually toppled by a storm.”
When I was in Thailand for the Lausanne 2004 Forum, I met the founder of Rahab Ministries which seeks to rescue women from the sex industry, share the Gospel with them, and train them in productive skills such as haircutting. She shared with me that 70% of tourists who enter Thailand are men. 70% of those men participate in the sex industry (the number one industry in Thailand). The majority of those men… are Japanese.
One night after our meetings I went to downtown Pattaya with the other Japanese Christian leaders. We ate at a sidewalk restaurant while male tourists walked the streets arm in arm with their young women/girls or even boys who they had “bought” for the night. As we spoke about mundane even stupid things, I was incensed as the group completely ignored all that was going on just a few feet away from us. The ability to just put up blinders to our eyes and feel no anger or compassion was just mind-boggling. No one suggested that we pray for the women or talk with the men. We just continued a stupid conversation.
The next morning I skipped all the meetings and spent time in Pattaya at Rahab Ministries. I spoke with them, prayed with them, and bought practically every card that the women had hand-made for support. I also made a promise - that one day I would send a CBS graduate to work at their ministry. It’s time for the Japanese Church to open her eyes to the raping of Asia that Japanese men are responsible for.
I wanted to encourage you to consider visiting their website http://www.rahabministriesthailand.org) and buying their hand-made cards or jewelry as Christmas or birthday gifts. If we’re going to buy presents anyway, why not support a very important ministry as well? They say that shipping takes 3-6 weeks so you’ll want to order asap if you want to use these for Christmas presents. But you can always stock up for other presents throughout the year.
May God have mercy upon these women and girls who He loves.
Been working on my dissertation mainly in the comfortable seats in the King of Prussia mall outside of Borders. While walking through the magazine aisle I noticed a magazine cover with a title, “The diet to end all diets” with a picture of a waif-like young woman whose mother and grandmother probably weigh 180 pounds combined. Then there are the muscle magazines with ads for power drinks that will make you as muscular as the grotesquely pictured man whose father was probably Lou Ferrigno (for those of you who aren’t familiar Lou was the muscular actor who played the muscular character the Hulk).
Sometimes Christians can fall into the same deceptions. We can look at naturally gifted preacher or speaker and give 100% spiritual attribution for their talents. We can look at a sickeningly “good” Christian who never does ANYTHING wrong - always speaks so kindly and never gets mad while driving and wonder why their faith is so much better than ours.
The truth of the matter is that some preachers and teachers can run entirely on natural gifting coming across very impressively but masking a bankrupt and faulty spirituality. And you can have a Mr. Roger’s (especially for those of you who aren’t Americans Mr. Rogers was a children’s television personality who was always extremely kind and perfect. He actually was a Presbyterian minister as well) Christian who thinks he or she is doing just fine spiritually (or much much better than fine - better than everyone around them) who is simply operating from a natural wiring that lulls them into spiritual complacency and Pharisaism.
The wonderful truth and hope of Christianity is that we are not ultimately limited to our natural wiring - unlike the large boned woman who wants to be stick-skinny or the wiring small boned man who wants to be Arnold Schwartzeneggar big. God can both further empower and God-glorifyingly use natural gifting and also spiritually gift and grace areas of character and gifting that are largely absent or corrupted in natural gifting and wiring.
So, a piece of advice. Recognize your natural gifting and give thanks to the Lord for it. BUT don’t be lazy or don’t be deceived into thinking that the easy exercise of natural talents in the flesh is enough or even good. These areas will be particularly difficult for you to learn how to exercise with total dependence upon God and wholly for God’s glory. These are talents that you could perform in your sleep - or in spiritual terms - totally without prayer or reliance upon God. AND people will heap boat-loads of prayer on you - perhaps with a twist of spiritual language. Learning to exercise talents in naturally gifted areas with humility, full reliance upon God and with spiritual empowerment of those natural gifts is the difference between your getting the glory or God and the difference between a ministry that is good just on the outside or is really God’s.
Secondly for areas where you lack natural gifting - either in character/personality or skill - learn to recognize these as well. Recognize these as particularly challenging areas that will require (as much as the true spiritual exercise of your naturally gifted areas) faith and God’s empowerment. Don’t be discouraged or hopeless as you see the seemingly perfect exercise of such gifts and life in Christians around you. Know that if they exercise such talents with natural ease apart from a reliance and glorifying of God they should not be envied. Know also that if they exercise such talents by the grace of God in faith and for the glory of God they do so with the same power and grace of God that is available to you as well - if you would approach the Lord with humility, from secure identity in Christ, and for His and not your glory.
For you Mr. Rogers perfect Christians, don’t be deceived into thinking that your naturally wired goodness makes you better or less sinful than those around you. Don’t be deceived into thinking that you don’t have to work very hard and deliberately and humbly for your spiritual development. May your good works be from Biblical conviction and divine power and your righteousness Christ’s not your own.
For you bad-boy and bad-girl Christians, don’t envy nor despise your Mr. Rogers brothers and sisters. You have blessings of audacity and spunk that can bring the Lord much glory - if they will be exercised and harnessed and sanctified by the Spirit. Your goodness will never be in the exercise of sickly sweet, walk-all-over-me always doing the right thing. Your goodness is the credited righteousness and goodness of Jesus Christ alone. Allow God to sanctify areas of your gifting and fallenness for His glory.
God has as many plans for sanctification as there are Christians in this world. Each one unique and perfect for us. Lord have your way in each of our lives.
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