Perspectives on the World Christian Movement - #`2 The Great Commandment and the Great Commission

In Matthew 22:34-40 Jesus states that the Greatest Commandment is total love for God which will express itself in selfless love of one's neighbor. All of God's commandments are summed up in this.

In Matthew 28:18-20 declared to all his disciples that He had universal authority, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them ina the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

So how do the Great Commandment and the Great Commission work together? Are they merely two different ways of expressing the same mandate?

While certainly much could be said about how they complement each other there is one major distinction that must be pointed out.

The Great Commandment will never be completed. We will be loving God and our redeemed neighbors in heaven for eternity.

The Great Commission however will be fulfilled and will eventually become history. As pointed out in the previous post, the Great Commission's fulfillment is founded on God's promise to "bless all the nations", a promise reiterated by Jesus Himself (Matthew 24:14). There is a linear point in history where the Great Commission will become the Great Fulfillment.
We are closer than ever to that point.
As you strive for faithfulness to the Great Commandment, may you be used by God to complete the Great Commission.

Perspectives on the World Christian Movement - #`1 The Living God is a Missionary God

A few weeks ago I began taking the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement class offered through the U.S. Center for World Mission. So far the class has been mind and heart blowing. It is so encouraging, convicting and motivating to be in a theology class and actually get excited about God! I also am enjoying this class because of all the connections it has been making for me. I came out of seminary knowing how to exegete, exposit and preach a passage, but this class is helping me see the big picture of how God is working in the world to bring people to Him. I can now say without hesitation that God is a missionary God and that everything He has revealed about Himself is connect to that purpose.
I hope to post some thoughts from time to time about what I am learning in this class.
To get us started let's look at the Abrahamic Covenant in Gen 12:1-3:

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.
“I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”

Previously when I thought of missions the texts that would first come to my mind were the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20 and Acts 1:7-8. I thought of mission almost exclusively as a New Testament phenomenon. Studying this passage changed that. I saw that missions is not something that Jesus made up but that Jesus fulfilled and enabled. I was profoundly impacted by the statement, coming from the Abrahamic Covenent, “Missions is not a duty or a task, it is a promise”. God promises that He will use His people to bless the world and through Jesus (the seed of Abraham) not only does the world receive that blessing but Gentiles like us are able to be included in that blessing (Gen 3:14), which in turns enables us to be bearers of that blessing to the rest of the unreached world.

God will keep His promise to bless all the nations through the seed of Abraham, the question is will we surrender ourselves to be used to fulfill that promise, or will we choose to miss out on God's exhilirating work of redemption in this world.

blessed to be a blessing,
jrf

Nehemiah 8-9

I had the privilege to preach for the English Congregation this Sunday. Below for your reading and Bible study enjoyment is the outline of my sermon on Nehemiah 8-9.

IV. Prerequisites for Understanding the Word of God
1. Hunger for it
2. Put yourself in a postion to receive and respond to it
3. Work at it until it’s meaning is made clear
V. 7 Necessary and Inevitable Responses to Understanding the Word of God
1. Understanding the Word of God must devastate you (8:9)

2. Understanding the Word of God must cause you to celebrate (8:10-12)

3. Understanding the Word of God must create compassionate fellowship (8:10-12)

4. Understanding the Word of God must produce obedience (8:13-17)

5. Understanding the Word of God must realign your religious traditions (8:17-18)

6. Understanding the Word of God must move you to confess your sins (9:1-4)

7. Understanding the Word of God must bring about a renewal of Covenant Faithfulness (9:5-38)

FINISH THE PRAYER! PUT YOUR HISTORY IN THERE! CONFESS THE WAYS YOU HAVE TURNED YOUR BACK ON GOD, AND REMEMBER THE WAYS THAT HE HAS DRAWN YOU BACK TO HIM!
NO GREATER EXPRESSION OF GOD’S LOVE AND FAITHFULNESS AND INEXHAUSTIBLE GRACE THAN THE PERSON AND WORK OF JESUS CHRIST!

Take this time to respond to God’s Word. Hopefully God has made some things clear to you this morning. This is an opportunity to express to Him in writing how His word has Devastated you, Given you Joy, inspired you to seek and maintain compassionate fellowship, how it has produced in you a desire to live a life of radical obedience (get specific), caused you to rethink and reflect on your religious traditions, how it has moved you to confess your sins, and how the inexhaustible Love and Grace of God has given you a foundation by which you can renew your promises of faithfulness to Him.

James 3: a story

Here is a great short film by Desiring God. If you don't get it, read James chapter 3:1-12

Jesus and Psalm 90:14

I have been preparing for a sermon series in Youth Group called, "Portraits of Jesus". My goal is to present Jesus to the Youth the way the Bible does, which is not the way we normally think of Jesus. Too often we pick the things we like about Jesus and ignore the rest. Youth in the church grow up with a Jesus-lite and Youth outside the church get their ideas of Jesus from MTV or worse sources. My goal is to confront them with the real Jesus and see what happens. Should be fun.
A huge benefit of this series is that I get to spend all of my study time learning about my favorite person, Jesus Christ. Hopefully this time won't just be learing about Jesus through reading what other people think they know about Jesus but will also be a time where I can be taught about Jesus by Jesus Himself. When I get up to preach to the kids I don't want to just talk about the Jesus of history, or the Jesus of Billy Graham or Macarthur or Spurgeon....I want to talk about MY Jesus. The Jesus that I know personally. The Jesus that owns me. The Jesus that delights in me because of who His blood has made me to be. The Jesus that watches me sleep. The Jesus that rides my bike to church with me everyday. The real, living Jesus. To be honest I don't feel like I can talk about Jesus like that every day. But I want to.
In Psalm 90:14 Moses cries out that God would "satisfy us in the morning with His unfailing love." Since there is no greater expression of God's unfailing love than the person of Jesus Christ, another way of saying this could be, "God satisfy us with Yourself!" The idea of satisfaction is recieving something you want. something you are hungry for. If you are hungry for a steak, a pickle won't do the trick. I am not satisfied with Jesus, because I am not hungry for Him. So behind the prayer of Moses which I echo, is the prayer, "God, change my tastes. Help me not to settle for anything less than You! You are willing and able to satisfy me, if only I was hungry for You! Change my twisted desires. Complete Your promise to give me a new heart that craves only You! How I long for the day when there is no competition in my soul for the affections You deserve. I will never be truly satisfied unless I first hunger."

craving Jesus
jrf

νουθετέω (Colossians 3:16)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col 3:16-17)

As I was preparing for a Bible study on "How to respond to believers in sin" I was struck with something in these verses. Something that perhaps I knew but really hadn't understood clearly the implications of. In these verses, Paul is commanding, not suggesting, that the word of Christ (the Bible) permeates every aspect of the believers life in the Body of Christ. Some examples of this church life are then listed: teaching, admonishing, singing, hearts of thankfulness. Paul then sums it up by saying that "whatever you do" should be Christ centered.

What hit me is that in Paul's list of activities and attitudes that he assumes are a natural part of church life, admonishing is sandwiched right between teaching and singing. That seemed weird to me. I have been in the church my whole life. I have heard a lot of teaching. I have sung a lot of songs. But admonishing? Apart from the occasional pulpit pounding sermon, admonishing has not been a regular experience for me in the Body of Christ, either giving or receiving.
The word admonishment in Greek literally means "to counsel about avoidance or cessation of an improper course of conduct" (BDAG), in other words, confronting people in their sin and lovingly calling them to repent. I know that we most often see that kind of thing as the responsibility of the pastor to cover in his sermons (where, by the way he probably won't use names and confront any individuals directly) but if we really want to be faithful to Scripture we will realize that the command to admonish each other is binding on every believer. We must be confronting each other about our sin! Its not an option. Get your hands dirty at church. Some of us don't even know anybody well enough to know what they need admonishing about!
Perhaps that greatest realization that I had about this passage is that admonishing each other is and should be as natural a part of the Christian experience as teaching, preaching, and singing worship songs. In fact, in our Western church services where everything has to be compartmentalized and scheduled to the exact minute, we should have a "admonishment" time right between worship and the sermon. We tend to think that when confrontation of sin has to take place that it is a bad thing. Of course sin is bad. But that is why we need sanctification and it is clear from scripture that sanctification does not happen in a vacuum, it happens in the Body of Christ. What better place to be confronted about and confess and repent of our deepest, darkest, demons then in the midst of a community who has felt the same conviction of sin and tasted of the loving mercy of our Savior? What better way to love your brother or sister in Christ than to be willing to have a hard conversation about them and warn them of their wandering from God? God is calling you and me to be about confronting sin in the lives of His children. Let's be obedient to give and humble to receive admonishment.

Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - John Donne on suffering and death

John Donne (1572-1631) was raised a Catholic in Protestant England. Having been persecuted for his Catholic faith (denied a degree at Oxford and Cambridge even though he was one of the top students, his brother dying in prison for harboring a priest) he rebelled against all faith and spent his young adult years between the sheets - "celebrating his sexual exploits in some of the most frankly erotic poems in all of English literature." (Yancey, Philip. Soul Survivor, 208). He eventually got married, but was slandered by his father-in-law and lost his job at the noble court and was thrown into prison. For the next decade he lived in poverty until, at the age of 42, he had a conversion experience and decided to become an Anglican priest. Shortly after this, his wife died, leaving him with seven children (five more had died in infancy). Eventually Donne became the dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
Donne was dean of St. Paul's when the Great Plauge struck London. During his tenure, a third of the city perished from the plague with a third more fleeing to the countryside. Eventually Donne himself was diagnosed with the plague. For six weeks he was bed ridden, thinking each day was his last. During this time he wrote what would later be compiled into Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (Emergent as in "Emergency" - no relation to the Emergent Church movement). The Devotions are a "no-holds-barred wrestling match with God Almighty...trenchant without being blasphemous, profound without being abstract or impersonal" (Yancey, 207.)
The following quotes from Devotions are taken from Philip Yancey's chapter on Donne in his book Soul Survivor. I have also included some quotes from Yancey, that help give context. Donne's quotes will be in italics and Yancey's in quotation marks. My prayer is that they will challenge, encourage, and induce worship to our Sovereign Lord Jesus.

"In Devotions, John Donne calls God to task. 'I have not the righteousness of Job, but I have the desire of Job: I would speak to the Almighty, and I would reason with God.' Sometimes he taunts God, sometimes he grovels and pleads for forgiveness, sometimes he argues fiercely. Not once, though, does Donne leave God out of the process." (211)


as thou has given me a repentance, not to be repented of, so give me, O Lord, a fear, of which I may not be afraid. "At first- confined to bed, churning out prayers without answers, contemplating death, regurgitating guilt - he can find no relief from fear. Obsessed, he reviews every biblical occurrence of the word fear. As he does so, it dawns on him that life will always include circumstances that incite fear: if not illness, financial hardship, if not poverty, rejection, if not loneliness, failure. In such a world, Donne has a choice: to fear God, or to fear everything else." (213)


If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. "We grieve at another's death because we ourselves are diminished. In the same event we sense a deep unity with others and also its rending." (216) (the daily death of plague victims was marked by ringing church bells, Donne heard these bells out his window on a constant daily basis, as he waited for his bell to ring).

Though so disobedient a servant as I may be afraid to die, yet to so merciful a master as thou I cannot be afraid to come


Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still: though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For, I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin? and, made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year, or two: but wallowed in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thy self, that at my death thy son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done,
I fear no more. (A Hymn to God the Father)

that voice, that I must die now, is not the voice of a judge that speaks by way of condemnation, but of a physician that presents health

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so...
...One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.

I cannot plead innocency of life, especially of my youth, but I am to be judged by a merciful God, who is not willing to see what I have done amiss. And though of myself I have nothing to present to Him but sins and misery, yet I know He looks upon me not as I am of myself, but as I am in my Savior...I am therefore full of inexpressible joy, and shall die in peace."


Our last day is our first day; our Saturday is our Sunday; our eve is our holy day; our sunsetting is our morning; the day of our death is the first day of our eternal life. The next day after that...comes that day that shall show me to myself. Here I never saw myself but in disguises; there, then, I shall see myself, but I shall see God too...Here I have one faculty enlightened, and another left in darkness; mine understanding sometimes cleared, my will at the same time perverted. There I shall be all light, no shadow upon me; my soul invested in the light of joy, and my body in the light of glory. (from Donne's Sermons)

Quotes on discipleship

"The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, "Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down...Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked - the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours"
- C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity

"O, begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises...Whether you like it or no, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way: else you will be a trifler all your days...Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer"
- John Wesley "Letter to Mr. Jonathan Maskew"

"Fully immersed in this world, Christians belong to no world. Instead, while teased by each hope and every vision, they know them to be only hints of the new heaven and the new earth rooted in divine promises. And our yearning to become lost in God only intensifies our tears over the thought of leaving this life. Christian existence is a joyful nonsense. In a culture of self-realization, the Christian's call is to renounce self; in the face of noise, silence is the preference; in a world of competition, the Christian's declaration is that the winners will be losers and the losers winners; in a culture whose economy is intent on consumption, the Christian insists on simplicity; in a culture structured by possessions, the Christian insists upon a high standard of life; and at every point, the Christian exposes the emptiness of fullness for the sake of the gospel's fullness of emptiness."
- W. Paul Jones The Art of Spiritual Direction

Dear sin, you are hideous

I was struck while reading Perelandra (Book 2 in C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy) at the ugliness of sin and convicted by my lack of deep hatred for it. In the book the main character, Dr. Ransom, has been taken to a planet that is just being created. This new planet has an equivalent Adam and Eve and sin has not yet infected this new creation. Everything is new, pure, beautiful, peaceful, perfect, and full of life. Ransom spends a few days on this planet, basking in the beauty of God's unspoiled work, until evil is introduced. When Ransom stumbles across the first effects of this evil he is stunned by something that we would not think twice about here on sin-stained earth. But this decay in a world of pure life brought out the reality of the stark contrast between death and life. Here is how Lewis communicates it.

At first he (Dr. Ransom) thought it was a creature of more fantastic shape than he had yet seen on Perelandra. Its shape and was not only fantastic but hideous. Then he dropped on one knee to examine it. Finally he touched it, with reluctance. A moment later he drew back his hands like a man who had touched a snake.
It was a damaged animal. It was, or had been, one of the brightly coloured frogs. But some accident had happened to it. The whole back had been ripped open in a sort of V-shaped gash, the point of the V being a little behind the head. Something had torn a widening wound backward -- as we do in opening an envelope -- along the trunk and pulled it out so far behind the animal that the hoppers or hind legs had been almost torn off with it. They were so damaged that the frog could not leap. On earth it would have been merely a nasty sight, but up to this moment Ransom had as yet seen nothing dead or spoiled in Perelandra, and it was like a blow in the face. It was like the first spasm of well-remembered pain warning a man who had thought he was cured that his family have deceived him and he is dying after all. It was like the first lie from the mouth of a friend on whose truth one was willing to stake a thousand pounds. It was irrevocable. The milk-warm wind blowing over the golden sea, the blues and silvers and greens of the floating garden, the sky itself -- all these had become, in one instant, merely the illuminated margin of a book whose text was the struggling little horror at his feet, and he himself, in that same instant, had passed into a state of emotion which he could neither control nor understand. He told himself that a creature of that kind probably had very little sensation. But it did not much mend matters. It was not merely pity for pain that had suddenly changed the rhythm of his heart-beats. The thing was an intolerable obscenity which afficted him with shame. It would have been better, or so he thought at that moment, for the whole universe never to have existed than for this one thing to have happened. (108-109)


I want to have this kind of repulsion to sin and its effects. I want to see the ugliness of Satan as exposed in the piercing and truthful rays of God's glory. I want to curse the father of lies and be sickened at the horribleness of sin every time I drive by roadkill or am selfish or watch a dear friend die of cancer or see a people group systematically oppressed. I want to praise God that even His sin perverted-creation can still have a shadow of beauty that goes beyond any synthetic imitation we could make. I want to see and feel sin and its effects from God's perspective, not my own desensitized, complacent position. And I can because Christ, through His being twisted, tortured, torn and terminated has faced sin and it's rotten Father and defeated them for and throughout eternity.

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— 13 for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18 Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. (Ro 5:12-19)

But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.
(Heb 9:26)

by His grace
for His glory
jrf

One day, two worlds

Last Sunday, February 10, I attended two gatherings, both intended to bring honor to a specific person or group of people. One was, of course, church. The other was the Grammy Awards, which I, believe it or not, sold candy at. Needless to say it was big culture shock going right from one to the other. Below are some contrasts and comparisons. I will let you determine which event I am talking about:

- One had a few dozen in attendance, the other was watched by millions
- Both brought together people of all ages, races, and musical tastes
- I wore an old striped shirt and cargo pants to one, I wore a collared white shirt, black tie, and brand new dress pants to the other
- I sat next to a 3 year-old with a stinky diaper at one, there was no one under 15 at the other
- Speeches were limited to 30 seconds at one, at the other we listened intently to someone speak for over 30 minutes
- There was a lot of shaking of hands at both
- There were believers and unbelievers at both
- There were people who had been addicted to drugs at both
- Some of the richest people in our country were at one, some of the poorest people in our country were at the other
- One took months of preparation, at the other a band practiced 15 minutes before
- One will not take place for another year, the other will take place every week
- One was full of familiar strangers, the other was full of family members who are strange
- Honor was shown at one with loving hearts and engaged minds, honor was shown at the other with gold trophies
- One ceremony gave honor to creations who made creations, the other brought honor to the Creator of all
- At one thanks and credit was given by the one being honored to various people who had supported them, at the other credit was given to no one except for the One being honored
- One honored people who had died, the other honored Someone who had died and come back from the dead.
- One honored people who were born and will die, one honored a Being who always has been and always will be
- I saw Snoop Dog, Josh Groban, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Seal, Tina Turner, Beyonce, Alicia Keyes, and many more famous people at one, no one famous was at the other.


That's all I've got time for now!
Hope it gave you some food for thought!

"Suffer hardship...like a good soldier of Jesus Christ"

This week has been hard. Not hard like persecution. Not hard like starvation. Hard like American-spoiled hard. I admit that my "hard" is most of the world's fantasy. But for me this week was hard. Ministry emergencies, deadlines, interruptions of my routine, spiritual warfare, lack of sleep, emotional gymnastics, the sin of other's and my own sin all collided to make a trying week. More discouraging is the fact that these trials took me by surprise and I found I was ill prepared to face them, resulting in my retreat into escapism in some cases.
So when I was in my weekly discipleship meeting this morning with a student who has faced much of these same trials with me and we were going through II Timothy 2:1-7 I received a much needed kick in the pants from God's Word through Paul to Timothy.
As you may know Paul exhorts Timothy to "Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus." II Tim 2:3. He then goes on to illustrate this by saying that, "No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer. 5 Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules." (:4-5). As we began to talk about these verses I started to really think about what it means to endure hardship as a soldier does. The application that stuck out to me in a renewed way was that a soldier expects to see hardship. A soldier is not surprised when people start shooting at him. In fact, a soldier may even be disappointed if they come to the end of their career and have never been tested in the fires of combat. A soldier does not spend their life trying to avoid conflict, continually retreating to safety. A soldier is not consumed with finding new avenues of comfort and safety, but is consumed with engaging and defeating the enemy.
As I held up my life to those standards, I found myself lacking. In many ways my life (sometimes unintentionally, often intentionally) has been full of spiritual draft-dodging. I have tried every trick in the book to avoid facing the horrors of spiritual war and when the war finally comes to me, I am not prepared.
No longer can my life be about avoiding trials. Just as the soldier is consumed 24/7 with the mission so must I. My father is in a war zone right now and I guarantee you he does not know what Britney Spears did yesterday, or what movies are coming out this weekend. He might not even know who won the Superbowl. That's a good thing. Those things have nothing to do with his mission right now. So must I, and anyone who wants to be a good soldier of Christ, be so consumed with the painfully joyful mission of pressing on in our faith that "civilian" things are not allowed to choke out our light and let our guard down. Furthermore, our everyday energy must go towards preparing for trials, that will come and should be expected, and face them head on with the strength of the Lord, our Commander, Weapon, Prize, Medic, and Victor.

Blessings and Trials...a look back at 2007

As with any year, month, or day, 2007 was a beautiful fusion of trials and blessings. Looking back now on the melange of pain and exhilaration, victory and failure, it is easy to see God's faithful constancy through every situation. During the trials I did not easily see this truth however, and often failed not only to remember that God was in control but that He was using these trials to break myself of myself and trust in Him. If I learned anything at all from this year I pray that it is the ability to believe and remember that God is faithful and good through all things.

I have a few goals for this post. For those of you who are interested and have supported our ministry with your prayers, I hope this provides you with a brief overview of what's been going on in our lives and the life of our church. I also hope that this post provides an outlet for me to reflect on the past years and hopefully grow in the process. Above all I pray that this post glorifies God and points you to Him.


Trials.

1. The Suicide of Jon Moore.
While this was a tragedy and trial much more for those closest to him, like his brother my pastor and Jon's children, Jon Moore was an integral part of our church family. He had been at our church since the seventies and had served as an elder for many years. More than that, he was one of the most outgoing and caring people I have ever met. While I do not know the details that led him to take his own life, I do know that he was on some pretty heavy medications and had not been himself for the months prior. While his suicide was a definite sin, and his vision of Christ and ability to persevere in His strength was obscured in his last months I believe that he did trust in Christ for his salvation and that I will see Jon again in heaven. I also know that the Gospel was powerfully proclaimed to over a thousand people at the various memorial services.

2. The Falling Away of Close Friends
This trial did not sting quite as sharp and suddenly, yet has proven to be more lingering and wearisome to my heart. 2007 saw the turning away of some close friends from Christ back to the bondage of the lusts of the world. Some denied Christ openly with their words, some denied Him with their lives. Few things are more painful than watching someone you love turn their backs on the One who truly loves them and chase (or slowly sink into) destruction. Yet as long as there is breath there is hope. In this I must also have faith that God will work His plan perfectly.

3. Sarah in Physician Assistant School
This is also a blessing but the fact that both Sarah and I were in full time school with me having a half hour both way commute and her having an hour both way commute each day definitely was stretching on our schedule and budget at times. God was gracious and we trust in Him to help us continue to manage our time and priorities.


Blessings

1. Watching God work in the lives of the Youth.
God has worked in a way more visible than I have ever seen Him work in the Youth Group. This yearI saw kids who live in homes where their mom's boyfriend continuously abuses them show a Christ-like love to their mom's abuser. I have seen the children of a prostitue share Christ publicly with an entire neighborhood. I have seen unchurched youth express a burning desire to know the Word of God and share it with others, with one youth even specifically feeling a burden to share the Gospel with the neighborhood drug dealers...and then do it! God is working powerfully in the youth and it is my eternal joy to be along for the ride.

2. Unity in our Church
God has also been working to bring more unity in our church family. As you may know, we have two congregations in our church - Spanish and English. At times in the past some in the congregations have clashed over everything from philosophy of ministry and doctrine to who gets to use the bathroom. This past year however, both congregations have made intentional steps to function as one body of Christ. In addition God has put us in situations that have forced and fostered true Christian community.

3. Finishing Seminary
Seminary was one of the most challenging things I have ever faced. Through it all God was overwhelmingly faithful to give me what I needed to get through (and sometimes no more). It will only be worth it if I can live out all of the treasure that I was privileged to learn.

4. Growing deeper in my relationship with Sarah
My wife is a deep cavern of untold riches. I am still interpreting the treasure map. What a blessed adventure!

5. Travels
As you know I love to travel and 2007 afforded a few more opportunities. Highlights were a month long road trip to Minnesota and back with Sarah, traveling to Minneapolis with my father to attend the Desiring God conference, a two night stay in a luxurious cabin (belonging to a friend of the church) at Big Bear, and a two night backpacking trip into the Ventana Wilderness with my wife and father-in-law.


While I could write for much longer recalling the ups and downs of last year, and remembering the constancy of God through it all, I believe that the above represents the major high and low points and provides a general overview of what we've been up to. I pray that you were encouraged and that you will trust with an ever-increasing confidence in the the God who is not us or like us but is for us, if we are in Christ.

Happy New Year
jrf

please standby....

I pray that all of you had a great Christmas. While you may have expected me to post more now that I am out of school, think again. I am taking time off to let the scabs on my brain heal and quite frankly I am being lazy. But don't worry, I'm working up to a few posts that hopefully will have some substantial depth to them as well as updating you about the ministry. But for the meantime here is a Tozer quote to marinate in.

"We cannot think rightly of God until we begin to think of Him as always being there, and there first. Joshua had this to learn. He had been so long the servant of God's servant Moses, and had with such assurance received God's word at his mouth, that Moses and the God of Moses had become blended in his thinking, so blended that he could hardly separate the two thoughts; by association they always appeared together in his mind. Now Moses is dead, and lest the young Joshua be struck down with despair God spoke to assure him, "As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee" (Joshua 1:5; 3:7). Nothing had changed and nothing had been lost. Nothing of God dies when a man of God dies."

Seminary, prostitutes, adultery, grace and the sovereignty of God

At 11:57am on Thursday, December 13, 2007 I finished my last test for my Master's of Divinity degree at the Master's Seminary. The program took me 3 1/2 years to complete and was immeasurably more difficult than my bachelors in every way - academically, spiritually, physically, emotionally..etc.

It will take me much time to process this experience and I will probably never fully realize it's impact on my life and hopefully the lives of others. This post is not an attempt to understand or reflect on my seminary experience. I merely want to praise God for His faithfulness.

Perhaps the most prominent feeling I have been experiencing as I let the fact that I am done with seminary sink in is a sense of unworthiness. People expect me now to be qualified for ministry just cause I got an M Div. People expect me to have all the answers now and to not struggle with sin, expectations I will never meet. I know that most people dont actually have those expectations for me, yet often that is how I feel. I have learned Greek and Hebrew, studies homiletics, and know the outlines of the Bible and I know I have grown in my understanding and love of the Lord, yet in many ways I am still the same tired, struggling, sinner I was when I started.

So what does that have to do with prostitutes and adultery you might ask? Well, I will tell you. The morning after having the burden of seminary deadlines lifted from my shoulders, I decided to read through the book of Matthew. As you may know, the book of Matthew begins with a 17 verse genealogy of Jesus, starting with Abraham. It is easy to skip over this list of names but to do so would to rob yourself of a passage of inspired Scripture which contains great encouragement. As I read over the genealogy the names that stuck out to me were these: Tamar (:3), Rahab (:5), Ruth (:5) and Bathsheba (:6). The names of these four women represent some of the most sinful and tragic episodes in the Old Testament (Gen 38:13-30; Joshua 2:1; Ruth 1:3; II Samuel 11) yet they are included (and even highlighted - recording the names of women was not a common practice in ancient geneologies) in the genealogy of Jesus. We can look at this and be amazed at God's grace - how he could use things like prostitution and adultery and a Moabite woman to bring the Messiah into the world. Yet we can go farther than that. God didn't just make the most of a bad situation, He chose this way to bring Jesus into the earth. It was His perfect plan all along. Not that sin is excusable or that God is culpable for it, but in His sovereignty He chooses to use sinners to accomplish His purposes. That gives me great hope. God can use a sinner like me. God has chosen to use a sinner like me. The proper response to God's sovereignty is not a fatalistic, it-doesn't-matter-what-I-do attitude, but a bold confidence that God has a purpose for me, even me. A confidence that is in the unchanging faithfulness of the one who was killed and in turn killed death so that I and all those who He brings to Himself can be called His children. A confidence that manifests itself in a growing, burning, and joy-filled obedience to the Lord of all things. Who or what can stand in the way of such God-anchored confidence? Praise the sovereign and faithful God of the universe!

by His grace
for His glory,
jrf

loving the Corinthians

I Corinthians 13 is arguably one of the most beautiful passages in all of Scripture. It is the chapter of love. Chances are you are familiar with this passage. I have read this passage many times and often return to it to remind myself of the preeminence and definition of love in the Christian walk.

Yet recently I have realized that I have been lacking in my love for people (which is ultimately a lack of love for the Lord). Besides the ever-present, ever-ugly love of self from which I chronically suffer, I believe a contributor to this lack of love has been the heartwrenching blows that ministry often brings. In the past few months our friend and former elder at our church committed suicide, two practically orphaned boys in our youth group, one with severe cancer whom I care about deeply moved to Texas to live with their openly gay uncle, close and dear friends have forsaken their commitment to the Lord and returned to the addictions that used to bind them, students from the youth group who have graduated and become infatuated with the glitter of the world, friends I have looked up to for years for their radical faith have become worn down and lukewarmed by the grind of daily adult life...etc. I write these things not for you to have pity on me but to express to you some of the real pain of ministry. Many of you have no doubt experienced similar or even more intense pain. And perhaps some of you have responded to that pain in a similar manner as me...numbness. The price of numbness is empathy. It is hard to look out at my neighbors, students, and church family and see their spiritual needs when I am too busy trying to protect myself by divorcing my emotions from my ministry. Empathy means feeling the pain of others. There's a lot of pain out there to be felt.

So what does I Corinthians 13 have to do with this? Many things. But the point I want to emphasize in this already rambling post is this: Paul wrote this great masterpiece of love to the Corinthians! Out of all of the churches that Paul ministered to it was arguably the Corinthian church with its rampant gross sin that ripped Paul's heart to shreds more than other. And yet he did not allow the battle scars of ministry to jade him or make him numb towards those in his care. On the contrary, he emphasized even more strongly the preeminence of love among the spiritual gifts to this group of believers. The letters to the Corinthians can be blunt and even somewhat harsh at times but one cannot accuse Paul of failing to lace those admonitions in love and empathy. When ministry became hard, when loved ones fell into sin Paul became more empathetic, not less. What a lie it is to believe that I am protecting myself from ministry failure by trying to be strong and unshaken by the pain around me. No. my strength comes from the One who made Himself weak and suffered with and for the broken. Empathy is essential for the Christian walk and ministry because the empathy of my Savior was essential for my salvation. My God is empathetic with me. That incomprehensible reality demands and frees me to be empathetic with others.

learning to love
jrf

the Divine Oops?

Alright,

now that I know that at least four people (my 2 year old second cousin included) read this blog I have a renewed sense of worth and purpose. No, really thank you for your kind and encouraging comments.
So now that i know you all can use the comments section, let's get a discussion going. Below is a quote from Bruce Ware's book entitled God's Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism. Open Theism is a model of thinking about God being proposed by some in the "evangelical" world of Christianity. It basically states that true love and relationship can only happen between two equally vunerable persons. Therefore if God truly loves us and we are to truly love Him, He would have to share our limitations as far as not knowing the future. If He predetermined the future, or even knew the future, He would have an unfair advantage over us and therefore the relationship would not be genuine. or something like that. So, read the quote below and let's talk about what the implications are for and against believing in a God that knows the future. Let's discuss freely but as always, the Word of God will be the final authority.


"I have in mind particularly the suggestion that God reassessed his decision to bring a flood upon the whole world, sensing the pain from that destruction to have been greater than the pain from the sin itself. I see no other way to take this than as a suggestion that God in hindsight judged that he had made an enormous mistake. Granted, Sanders makes clear he believes that God was righteous in this judgment. Fine, but was he wise? Consider the magnitude of this mistake, if in fact God thought it so to be. The whole world, save a few people and animals, was deliberately killed by God in this action. Issues in human affairs could hardly get weightier than this. to think that God looked back and thought to himself, This was too severe and I am not entirely sure I should have done it; in fact, I'll never do it again, is nothing short of staggering! What confidence can we have in a God who must second guess his own actions? What does this tell us about the wisdom of God's own plans? If God is not sure that what he does is best, can we be sure that he really knows what he is doing? The simple fact is that a God who can only speculate regarding what much of the future holds, at times second-guesses his own plans, can get things wrong, can falsely anticipate what may happen next, and may even repent of his own past conduct is a God unworthy of devotion, trust, and praise. What open theists have "gained" by their insistence on God as a risk-taker has been won at the expense of God's full wisdom, knowledge, trustworthiness, majesty, sovereignty, and glory; and it leads inevitably to doubt, worry, and fear regarding the fulfillment of God's plans. This surely is a case of trading in the family inheritance for plans to build a new home on attractively advertised but worthless swampland." (Ware, 158-9)

"Missions and Masturbation" by John Piper

Don't see the connection? Check out this article by John Piper. Then check out this more recent article by Piper in the current Christiainity Today. .

by His Grace
for His Glory

Prayer in the Life of Elijah (part 8)

Persevering Prayer
One more aspect of Elijah’s prayer life from which we can draw application to our own, is his example of persevering or persistent prayer. This is perhaps most clearly seen in Elijah’s prayer for rain to return after the 3 ½ year drought. In I Kings 18:41-46 we see that Elijah’s request for rain to return was not immediately granted. Yet Elijah persistently prayed with his face buried in between his knees until God answered his prayer. Again we see the patient perseverance of Elijah’s prayer in his prayer for the widow’s dead son(I Kings 17). Three times this man of God prays to God for a resurrection. In the mystery of God, some of Elijah’s prayers were answered immediately and others were answered only after patient and persistent prayer.
Jesus commanded the same such persistent prayer of His followers. We are to be like the persistent widow of Jesus’ parable (Luke 18:1-8). Let us not give up if our prayers are not answered immediately and emphatically. God’s ways are not our ways and He answers prayer in accordance with His plan and timetable.

by His grace,
for His glory,
jrf

Desiring God Conference 2007 Top Ten

Last weekend I had the priviledge of attending the Desiring God National Conference with my Dad. Needless to say it was a great conference. The speakers were: John Macarthur, Jerry Bridges, Randy Alcorn, Helen Roseveare, and John Piper. All of the sessions are available to view and/or listen to at the Desiring God Blog

Since the conference was in Minneapolis, where I was born and most of my extended family is, I was able to visit some of my relatives as well. While there were many, many memorable experiences, here is a list of the top ten:

10. Stillwater - after getting picked up at the airport at 430am and sleeping for a few hours, my dad and I drove out to the town of Stillwater. Stillwater is a beautiful (whoa, I almost said 'cute'!) along the St. Croix river which forms the border with Wisconsin. More importantly it is home to one of the greatest used Christian book stores in the country.

9. Fall - I was again struck by the beauty of Minnesota. Fall doesn't really happen in L.A.

8. Worship - being able to join in worship to our Lord with believers that I didn't even know (and sing a lot of songs that I didn't know!) was and is always a blessing and a wonderful testimony to the power of Christ in uniting people from all tongues and tribes to worship Him.

7. John Piper - Piper on his homecourt...need I say more?

6. Jerry Bridges - this man began serving in the Navigators the same year my parents where born (1955). He is still doing it. A highlight of his message was when he spoke about the fact that the Gospel is not for unbelievers only, it is for believers as well. The same grace and power that saved us, is the same that will sustain and preserve us. We need to begin everyday at the cross.

5. Macarthur - I've heard Macarthur at my college, seminary, and at his church. But to see Him in another context I was able to see how incredibly gifted God has made this man in explaining and expounding the Word of God in a clear, relevant way.

4. Meeting Helen Roseveare - I didn't know it before I went, but Helen Roseveare is my hero, and always has been. She was a missionary in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. She worked there for a number of years doing medical missions before a civil war tore the country apart. Not only were all of the hospitals that she helped establish demolished, she was taken hostage and brutally beaten and raped. After 5 months she was rescued. She returned to England but returned to Congo a year later to get back to doing the Lord's work. She is now in her mid 80's and still full of fire for the Lord. I got to meet her and told her that my wife and I are preparing to do missions in Congo. She was so excited and asked what organization we were going with. I told her that I was having problems finding agencies willing to send us to DRC and she said, "Oh, bother! Go with WEC! (the organization she is with) We'll send you!" and gave me some contact information. I pray I still have that kind of zeal at 50, let alone 85.

3. Seeing Josiah Timothy Hendley - While I was in Minnesota, my friend, cousin, and brother in Christ Matt had his first boy. It was an honor to visit Josiah, and Matt and Bonnie and Gracie (their daughter)in the hospital. I have never seen such a young baby and it was amazing to wonder at the miracle of new life.

2. Witnessing God working in my Uncle Bruce - Before the conference started my dad and I were able to spend some time with my Uncle. My dad and uncle have not always gotten along, so the time had a good probability of being somewhat tense, with me playing peacekeeper. I was praying about this time far in advance, and God graciously and abundantly answered prayers. Instead of getting into arguments, the majority of our time was spent discussing things of the Lord. God is working powerfully in my Uncle, who has not always confessed Christ. He was sharing Scriptures he had been studying on his own and asking questions about certain passages and theological beliefs. It was really wonderful to the hunger for the truth the God has put in my uncle. It was also wonderful to see my dad and uncle show the love of Christ to each other. A miracle indeed.

1. Spending time with the Old Man - that's not the "old man" of Ephesians 4:22 (KJV)but my dad. Sure we got into plenty of arguments but that seems to be how God forces us to go deep with each other. But we also had plenty of times of great conversation. I could have listened to the sermons online but it was experiencing the moments of the conference with my dad and working through the truths presented together that makes me the most thankful that I went.

by His grace
for His glory
jrf

Funeral Meditations for a Christian who Committed Suicide by John Piper

These two sermons by John Piper have been helpful in helping me process the news of the post below. I found the exhortation at the end of the second sermon to be especially powerful.

Funeral Meditation for a Christian Who Committed Suicide (1981)

Funeral Meditation for a Christian Who Committed Suicide (1988)

Thankyou for your prayers.