Why?

From today's entries on Cross Point's Bible Reading Blog.

Matthew 27:46 - This also tells us that something more was going on than the physical suffering that eyewitnesses could have seen. Jesus was suffering the wrath of His Father, which included being forsaken by the One with whom He had enjoyed perfect fellowship from eternity past. Imagine a child calling for help from his father, only to have his father turn and walk the other way. His cry, "Why have your forsaken me?" would not be a noble, symbolic statement, but a cry of desperation and rejection. This, I am convinced, is how we should hear Jesus' cry here.

Who was St. Patrick?

Who was St. Patrick that he should have his own holiday? This article by Mark Driscoll gives us an answer. St. Patrick was "one of the greatest missionaries who ever lived."

"Patrick gave his life to the people who had enslaved him until he died at 77 years of age. He had seen untold thousands of people convert as between 30-40 of the 150 tribes had become substantially Christian. He had trained 1000 pastors, planted 700 churches, and was the first noted person in history to take a strong public stand against slavery."

You can read the whole thing here.

"O Sovereign Lord"

Last night, I read with my kids David's prayer in the second half of 2 Samuel chapter 7. Over and over, David calls God "Sovereign Lord." To be sovereign is to have absolute authority. No one has authority over someone who is sovereign. If God is the Sovereign Lord, then no one in the universe can make Him do what He doesn't want to do, or keep Him from doing what He wants to do. When we think about what God is like, is His sovereignty one of the first things we think of? Perhaps it should be.

Psalm 51:1

From my Bible reading this morning...

Psalm 51:1 - On what basis do we ask God for forgiveness? Not on the basis of our other good works, but on the basis of the greatness of His compassion. This is surely good news. We don't have to ask, "Have I done enough to be forgiven?" We only need to ask, "Is God compassionate enough to forgive?" And the answer is always, "Yes!"

Free Audio Books

Each month, ChristianAudio.com offers free audio books. This month, there are two free options (you can get both) - Dietrich Bonhoeffer's classic, The Cost of Discipleship, on John Piper's more recent excellent little book, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die. You can go straight to the free download page by clicking here.

An Unhindered Prisoner

Here is one of my comments from this morning on our church's Bible reading blog.

Acts 28:30-31 - Could Acts possibly end on a better note? Paul was being held as a prisoner. So what? He was able to welcome (receive) all who came to him. He was preaching "the kingdom of God" (there it is again) and was "teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ". He was doing this "with all openness." He didn't have to hide what he was doing. And then there is the beautiful final word of the book - unhindered. Paul was a prisoner. But nothing was hindering his proclamation of the Gospel of the kingdom.

Our Big News

On February 7th, I announced to our church that our family has become convinced that God wants us to pursue an opportunity for me to teach at Asia Baptist Theological Seminary, which is based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This seminary provides a US accredited Master's level education to national pastors, missionaries, Bible translators, and other in locations throughout Asia. We would be living in Chiang Mai, where the seminary's office is, and I would travel multiple times a year to teach two-week seminar classes in countries like the Philippines, Singapore, Myanmar, Thailand, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, etc.

This decision was difficult, since we are part of a great church and it is an exciting time in the life of our church. Our decision really is a matter of obedience to what God seems to be making clear to us - that it is time to pursue something that has been in our hearts for a long time, something which seemed impossible in the past, but which now seems possible. It feels to us like if we tried to justify any other course of action, we would be demonstrating a lack of faith in what we've been learning - and what I've been preaching - and that we would be disobedient to God.

For now, I will remain on as pastor until the elders release me to begin our financial support raising. We expect this release to occur when we have brought in our next pastor. Between searching for a new pastor and raising financial support, we expect to be about two years away from moving to Thailand (Lord willing!).

Below is (a somewhat lengthy) portion of the message I gave when I announced and explained this decision...

First of all, the consideration of full-time missions is not a new thing for us. When I came to faith in Jesus in college, it was through Campus Crusade for Christ, one of the largest mission agencies in the world. I became friends with people who had been on mission trips and went on some myself. I had a growing excitement about being involved in God’s work in different parts of the world and thought that He wanted me to go be involved in that work.

In fact, as I was getting to know Beth, I was pretty sure that God wanted me to be a missionary. I knew that if I was going to marry someone, they would need to be willing to be a missionary too. Before I would ever ask Beth on a date, I needed to be sure that she could go along with whatever missionary calling God might have for me. And I clearly remember asking her in the cafeteria on campus one day if she had ever thought of being a missionary. And I learned, to my pleasure, that she was very much open to being a missionary. I thought I was being kind of sly, not letting on that I wanted to ask her out if the answer was yes. But I found out later that she knew exactly what I was doing. Apparently, slyness is not my gift.

Early in our marriage, we were planning on being full-time missionaries in a Muslim country. But God sent us in another direction at the time (to Canada), although we never completely dismissed the possibility of missions. In seminary, we were again considering full-time missions, especially opportunities to be training pastors in other parts of the world – something that we both felt was extremely important and that might be something I would be effective at. It was something we would have really liked to do. But it just didn’t seem possible, so we once again pursued something else. And that something else led us here, something for we which we are extremely grateful.

As I reflect on why it didn’t seem possible for us to pursue full-time missions at that time, I can think of three reasons why it didn’t seem possible. (I want to mention these so you can see how God removed those obstacles.)

- We had very young children, which, as you know, makes day-to-day life very challenging. And this made it seem impossible for us – and especially for Beth – to manage to do much more than survive if we lived in another part of the world.

- My dad was alone. I have a really close relationship with my dad. And almost 11 years ago, my parents’ marriage ended. So my dad lived alone. And the thought of moving so far away from him seemed impossible.

- We had no real opportunity to pursue the kind of ministry we were interested in. We liked the idea of training pastors overseas, but didn’t know where we would or could do that. We didn’t know anybody who could open that door for us. And, on top of that, I had no experience as a pastor that would give me any credibility in training pastors.

So it didn’t seem possible for us to go into full-time missions. And we were beginning to think that it would never happen. And that was okay – because God gave us an opportunity to serve with you – first at Walnut Creek, and now at Cross Point (Walnut Creek and Vienna Baptist Church merged to form Cross Point last year). And I had every intention of staying here for decades. Some of you heard me say things like that and I meant it. I didn’t want to move on to another church. And while teaching pastors overseas still sounded like the coolest job in the world, it didn’t seem like something that was possible. And we didn’t expect that to change.

But then God began to do some things that did change things for us, taking what seemed impossible and making it seem not only possible, but really, quite honestly, like something we must do – at the risk of being disobedient.

So what did God do to open doors that had seemed closed to us in the past?

1. I have to be honest that getting to know the Miskimen family had a big impact on us.

a. Not only were they good friends to us, but

b. Their preparation to teach at ABTS made us aware of a real place where people were doing the kind of thing that I already thought was the coolest job in the world.

c. We watched them actually do some very difficult things – like completing the process of raising financial support, and saying goodbye to familiar things and to their families. And when you see other people do hard things to follow and serve Jesus, it gets a little bit easier to imagine yourself doing those same hard things.

d. And we’ve kept in touch with them and learned that people like us – even Charlene who doesn’t even like Americanized Chinese food – can make it in Thailand – house geckoes and all.

e. But this still didn’t seem to be a real possibility until a few other things began to happen last year.

i. My dad remarried. God brought a wonderful lady named Nancy into my dad’s life and they got married last March. All of a sudden, the dad that I didn’t want to leave alone by going overseas, would not be alone.

ii. I began to learn about the plans of ABTS to expand their degree offerings, meaning that more professors were needed.

iii. I had a “real” opportunity to teach in a more academic situation than normal (in Sierra Leone), and I received very good feedback on my teaching, both from the pastor/students, and from a long-time friend who knows the difference between good and bad professors. So I began to realize that maybe teaching wasn’t just something that I wished I was good enough at to be used by God in an academic setting, but something that I am good enough at for.

iv. Beth began to feel much more capable of managing life in a foreign country. I’m not sure why – perhaps it was some combination of increased faith in God, hearing how the Miskimens were doing, our kids being older, and our family managing well without me for almost three weeks this fall. But my precious wife, who before couldn’t imagine doing more than surviving on the mission field, could now trust that God could help her do better than that.

v. And one of the biggest things that happened to me last year that changed things for us was…preaching through the Gospel of Matthew (okay, through about half of it).

We’ve been going through Matthew together. So you’ve learned a lot of the same things that I’ve been learning. Jesus demands a lot from His disciples. But He also promises a lot. And I began to find myself asking myself this question: “If I really believed what Jesus says, how would I live my life differently?”