The Sweet Dropper

Last week I had to pull out of town before I could get Sweet Counsel completed. We went to Lucedale, where Nelson and I put in two flower beds for Judy’s parents. So, let’s catch up…

REVISIT

Vacation Bible School: As I write, there is one more day of Vacation Bible School left. The King Is Coming has been a great curriculum, but what makes a good VBS is great workers and helpers. We’ve had plenty of those. Christi Sims has done an excellent job directing the week. As of Wednesday, we’ve had 78 different children come at least one day, with an average daily attendance between 65-70. Our youth always come through with great help with activities in the gym, teaching, crafts, music, skits, sound engineering, nursery. In fact, our teenagers provide help in every facet of VBS. We couldn’t do it without them. And, space does not permit me to talk about how great the skits were…You can find photos on fpckosciusko.org sometime on Friday.

RELATE

Mission: Japan: I love world missions, and I love pastoring a church that loves world missions. As the pastor of such a congregation, I have a number of opportunities come my way to see the work in various parts of the world. Many of them I have to turn down. On others (Peru in 2007 and Romania in 2008) I have been very blessed to see first-hand the advance of the Savior’s kingdom.

In July I have the rare opportunity to retrace some steps, doing some preaching and teaching with the MTW team in Nagoya, Japan. Many of you know that I spent the summer of 1989 in Nagoya, assisting the church planting team there. A couple of members of that team are still there, and I look forward to renewing those ties, seeing some Japanese pastors I worked under back then, and observing how the work has changed in two decades. I am taking Nelson with me, and he will assist with conversational English classes. A key part of our visit to Japan will be to take a few days and visit Kaz Yaegashi in Yamagata (northern Japan). Kaz is a PCA minister who was sent to Japan as a missionary (though he is a Japanese citizen) by Mississippi Valley Presbytery back in the 1970′s. I have known Kaz and his wife Katie for the last 10 years. Katie’s father, Dr. Jim Moore, pastored the Macon church from 1961-1968. Two weeks ago Kaz was diagnosed with stomach cancer and will be undergoing surgery to remove most of his stomach on June 22. Kaz’s illness makes the trip take on a different tone, as he will no doubt still be recovering. I pray that the trip to Yamagata will convey the concern and love of the brethren here in the States for Kaz and Katie.

REPENT

Below is a very insightful comparison between “religion” and “the gospel” drawn from the sermons of Tim Keller (Senior Pastor of Redemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and author of The Reason for God and The Prodigal God). Tim does a remarkable job of probing hearts and revealing how easily we slip into self-dependence. Read the comparison list below with humility and care. It will do your soul good.

RELIGION: I obey-therefore I’m accepted.

THE GOSPEL: I’m accepted-therefore I obey.

RELIGION: Motivation is based on fear and insecurity.

THE GOSPEL: Motivation is based on grateful joy.

RELIGION: I obey God in order to get things from God.

THE GOSPEL: I obey God to get to God-to delight and resemble Him.

RELIGION: When circumstances in my life go wrong, I am angry at God or my self, since I believe, like Job’s friends that anyone who is good deserves a comfortable life.

THE GOSPEL: When circumstances in my life go wrong, I struggle but I know all my punishment fell on Jesus and that while he may allow this for my training, he will exercise his Fatherly love within my trial.

RELIGION: When I am criticized I am furious or devastated because it is critical that I think of myself as a ‘good person’. Threats to that self-image must be destroyed at all costs.

THE GOSPEL: When I am criticized I struggle, but it is not critical for me to think of myself as a ‘good person.’ My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on God’s love for me in Christ. I can take criticism.

RELIGION: My prayer life consists largely of petition and it only heats up when I am in a time of need. My main purpose in prayer is control of the environment.

THE GOSPEL: My prayer life consists of generous stretches of praise and adoration. My main purpose is fellowship with Him.

RELIGION: My self-view swings between two poles. If and when I am living up to my standards, I feel confident, but then I am prone to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. If and when I am not living up to standards, I feel insecure and inadequate. I’m not confident. I feel like a failure.

THE GOSPEL: My self-view is not based on a view of my self as a moral achiever. In Christ I am “simul iustus et peccator”—simultaneously sinful and yet accepted in Christ. I am so bad he had to die for me and I am so loved he was glad to die for me. This leads me to deeper and deeper humility and confidence at the same time. Neither swaggering nor sniveling.

RELIGION: My identity and self-worth are based mainly on how hard I work. Or how moral I am, and so I must look down on those I perceive as lazy or immoral. I disdain and feel superior to ‘the other.’

THE GOSPEL: My identity and self-worth are centered on the one who died for His enemies, who was excluded from the city for me. I am saved by sheer grace. So I can’t look down on those who believe or practice something different from me. Only by grace I am what I am. I’ve no inner need to win arguments.

RELIGION: Since I look to my own pedigree or performance for my spiritual acceptability, my heart manufactures idols. It may be my talents, my moral record, my personal discipline, my social status, etc. I absolutely have to have them so they serve as my main hope, meaning, happiness, security, and significance, whatever I may say I believe about God.

THE GOSPEL: I have many good things in my life—family, work, spiritual disciplines, etc. But none of these good things are ultimate things to me. None of them are things I absolutely have to have, so there is a limit to how much anxiety, bitterness, and despondency they can inflict on me when they are threatened and lost.

Evening Worship: Thanks for the encouraging comments on the Revelation series! If you need to give me discouraging comments, state them now, because I am ready to press forward! We will be looking at Revelation 15-16. The passage shows us the fourth set of visions, which consist of a vision of seven bowls of God’s wrath being poured out. Like the seven trumpets, the bowls and reminiscent of the plagues against Egypt in the book of Exodus. The bowls sumbolize the wrath and judgment of God against evildoers. If we belong to Christ, the wrath of God will never touch us, for Christ has faced it and had it poured out on him at the cross. Well did Augustus Toplady pen these lines:

If Thou hast my discharge procured,

And freely in my room endured the whole of wrath divine;

Payment God cannot twice demand,

First at my bleeding Surety’s hand, and then again at mine.