The Sweet Dropper

Thanks, Joe! Sunday is Joe’s final Sunday on our staff. The Hollands will still be here for a while, as they are awaiting the sale of their house. Joe will be something of a “church planter in residence” here, tending full-time to the development of the church plant in Culpeper. They will be here on Wednesdays and Sundays when they are not traveling or visiting other churches in our Presbytery. We rejoice at the news that his support is at 94% now. We are sad to see them go, however. Joe has been a good laborer and has served us well. You can follow the development of the Culpeper, Virginia church plant at http://culpepermission.org/.

He dumped water on me in the picture on the right because I was supposed to be wet in that uniform for a VBS skit back in 2006. I still think his face shows a bit too much delight in the task.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT CONNECTION: The original plan for Wednesday Night Connection was for us to continue the Ladies’ Bible Study and Men’s Forum on the first Wednesday of the month. However, Maureen Boswell, our Ladies’ Bible Study leader, has to stay on in Fredricksburg, Texas, after Johnny’s injury and surgery. So we are giving Ladies’ Bible Study and Men’s Forum a vacation in the month of June. The Truth Project and Framework of Faith will continue through the entire month of June. Wednesday Night Connection is designed to connect us with one another in fellowship and reaching and to dig deeply into God’s Word through Bible-centered studies for children, youth, and adults. There’s always room for more–and just because you missed the first and/or second session, don’t think you can’t join in now.

Remember the schedule for the summer:
6:00   Children’s ministry; adult and youth electives will gather in their respective meeting rooms

Electives
•    Framework of Faith: a study of fundamental Christian teaching that aims to be rigorous and refreshing, systematic and stimulating (led by Phillip Palmertree). A number of people have been asking for a survey of systematic theology, and here it is. Join us for a study of the skeletal system of Christian living. Meeting in the Mary Thornton Room.

REPENT

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland voted last week to sustain a call to a minister who is in an openly same-sex partnership. This is sad and grievous news. My friend David Robertson, minister of St. Peter’s, Dundee (a Free Church of Scotland congregation) spoke to his flock about the situation this past Lord’s Day and posted his remarks on his blog. Below is an excerpt.

1) We reject all forms of homophobia. There is no need for Christians to be afraid of homosexuals. If you are a homosexual you are as welcome in St Peters as you are if you are a heterosexual. And just as we would expect heterosexuals to live according to biblical standards as Christians, so we would expect homosexuals to live according to biblical standards as Christians.

2) We accept the teaching of the Bible about human sexuality. In other words sex is between one man and one woman in the context of marriage. Anything else is sinful.

3) The Church of Scotland last night voted to endorse and accept a minister who openly goes against the Bible’s teaching.

4) The Church of Scotland based this decision on a teaching that destroys the Church. They stated, “The ‘Word of God’ is not synonymous with the Scriptures, but it can, in part, be discerned from the Scriptures through prayer and through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit”. The difficulty here is that whilst this sounds spiritual it means that the General Assembly of the Church becomes the Magisterium – a court which may use the Bible but which in reality tells the rest of us what God says. This is a recipe for an authoritarian church that limits the freedom of the believer to follow the Word of God, which IS synonymous with the Bible.

5) The implications of this decision are enormous. The Church of Scotland decision will hasten the day when the State persecutes those who uphold the Bible’s teaching and when people like myself will be prosecuted for teaching the Bible. This week for example I received an e-mail asking if a talk I gave could be put on a website but suggesting that it would have to be password protected in case I was prosecuted for homophobia – what did I say? Only that marriage was between one man and one woman. People are being prosecuted and losing their jobs, not because they are homophobic, but rather just because they dare to believe that what the Bible says is true.

I’ll keep you posted on what happens next with our brethren back in the homeland of Presbyterianism.

REMEMBER

Pentecost Sunday is fifty days after Easter, the occasion of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in fulfillment of the promise of Joel 2:28-32 (“I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh…”). In the Old Testament Pentecost was a feast that celebrated the first fruits of the year’s harvest (Exodus 23:16; Numbers 28:26). In the New Testament, the fulfillment appears, and the long-expected Day of the Lord has arrived: the powers of the age to come are released; the harvest of the world begins to come in. Christ—crucified, risen and ascended—pours out the Spirit in unrestrained measure and without geographical or ethnic limitation. The gospel promise “is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39). Giving special attention to the person and work of the Holy Spirit in our worship helps us recognize our utter dependence on his presence and work in our lives as disciples of Christ.

Last year I heard about an Episcopal church in Jackson which noted Pentecost in a memorable way in their liturgy. A reader began reading Acts 2, and when he came to the part about the disciples of Jesus speaking in various languages, he was joined by readers reading the same passage in Spanish, German, Chinese, and an African language–all of them reading the passage simultaneously!

Evening Worship: I rushed through Revelation 11 last week. We’ll be marching at a fast pace as we look over Revelation 12-14. The passage is a procession of visions of a beast. First, John sees warfare between a dragon (Satan) and a woman who bears a child. The dragon cannot kill the child and is eventually thrown down as a voice declares that the kingdom of God and his Messiah have come. Secondly, John sees a beast rising from the sea. This beast appears to prevail over the saints and gain the allegiance of the rebellious world. Another beast appears to aid him. Then John sees teh lamb on Mount Zion at the head of his army of 144,000 marked with the Father’s name (rather than marked by the beast). Then John sees a vision of the son of man glorious in triumph and ready to carry out his judgment.

REMEMBER

Ascension Sunday: Scripture teaches us that on the fortieth day after his resurrection our Lord Jesus ascended into heaven where he is now seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us, ruling and reigning over the universe as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Ascension is one of the five great evangelical feast days observed by many Reformed churches (the others being Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas). Below is a quote from Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, in which he reminds us of the importance of the ascension in understanding our union with Christ and its significance for living the Christian life:

“Union with Christ in his death and resurrection is the element of union which Paul most extensively expounds…if we are united to Christ, then we are united to him at all points of his activity on our behalf. We share in his death (we were baptized into his death), in his resurrection (we are resurrected with Christ), in his ascension (we have been raised with him), in his heavenly session (we sit with him in heavenly places, so that our life is hidden with Christ in God), and we will share in his promised return (when Christ, who is our life, appears, we also will appear with him in glory) (Rom. 6:14; Col. 2:11-12; 3:1-3).

This, then, is the foundation of sanctification in Reformed theology. It is rooted, not in humanity and their achievement of holiness or sanctification, but in what God has done in Christ, and for us in union with him. Rather than view Christians first and foremost in the microcosmic context of their own progress, the Reformed doctrine first of all sets them in the macrocosm of God’s activity in redemptive history. It is seeing oneself in this context that enables the individual Christian to grow in true holiness.” [Sinclair Ferguson, 'Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification', Ed. Donald Alexander, Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1988]

Reformed Youth Ministries: Sunday evening my friend Joey Stewart will be visiting to report on a great REACHING effort: Reformed Youth Ministries (RYM), a ministry on whose board I have served for the past 13 years. Most of us know RYM as the conference to which we send junior high and senior high students each summer. That is the backbone of this minstry, but in recent years it has expanded in a number of other exciting directions.

RYM exists to reach junior and senior high school students for Christ and equip them to serve Him in the church and in the world. For more than 30 years RYM has provided conferences for youth that are Word-driven, God-centered, and Gospel-focused. God has blessed RYM, growing us from our original one conference to now six conferences that are reaching and equipping students in the Southeast, West, and Pacific Northwest. We give all praise to God for the abundant grace he has extended to us and the more than 2000 students and youth leaders who attend the summer conferences.

Joey is an 1988 graduate of the University of Mississippi in 1988 and a 1992 graduate of Reformed Theological Seminary. After spending several summers ministering to youth at camps such as Alpine Camp for Boys in Mentone, AL and Twin Lakes Camp in Florence, MS, he became the director of youth and educational ministries at First Presbyterian Church in Yazoo City, MS where he ministered for nearly 5 years. In 1993 he accepted a call to become the assistant pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Crossville, TN with the responsibility of planting a PCA church in Cookeville, TN. Grace Presbyterian Mission was immediately formed and he remained in Cookeville as the organizing pastor and later senior pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church, PCA for 14 years. He then accepted a call in February of 2007 to become the Executive Director of Reformed Youth Movement (RYM).

Joey has served on the TN Area Joint Presbytery Committee on Campus Ministry (RUF) since 1994 and as chairman of that committee since 1998. He has also served on several General Assembly RUF committees. Additionally, he has been a member of the board of directors for Reformed Youth Movement since 1990 and possesses a resolute zeal and passion to serve the church and extend the kingdom through the expanding mission of RYM.

Joey and his wife Connie have four children, Ashley Grace (16), Joseph Wesley (14), Hannah Faith (11), and Jennifer Cawthorn (6) as well as a newly acquired Hungarian Sheepdog, Maggie (4 months). The Stewarts currently reside in Cookeville, TN.

Evening Worship: Last Sunday night I could not cover the entire pause in Revelation 10-11, so I split the passage in half. Revelation 10-11 covers the pause between the sixth and seventh trumpets (just like the pause bewteen the sixth and seventh seals in Revelation 7). This Sunday night I’ll cover the second half, and we’ll consider what Revelation unveils for us about Christian witness.