Going to Atlanta...

Sorry no blog posts for a while....I've just finished a HUGE project and presentation, an exegetical/theological treatment of Judges 6. So, I've been 'in the weeds' for quite some time. This was my last project ever (I hope!) for RTS! Now, I focus on graduation and ordination exams.

This weekend we'll be speaking briefly during the service at The Vine Community Church in Cumming, GA and hosting a heavy hors d'ouevres lunch right after the 11am service. Drop in if you're in the area!

Not Thailand, but this is awesome...

Redeemer Missions Conference

We have a very busy weekend...our church here in Jackson, Redeemer PCA, is hosting a weekend-long missions conference. We are have a chance to speak multiple times and will be able to talk with interested individuals about prayer and financial partnership. Pray for us as we spend the weekend telling our story!

So it begins...

A 2 month stretch of being at different churches nearly every weekend...I'm going to miss Redeemer, but there will be some very sweet time with the saints in other churches. Tomorrow we'll be in Crystal Springs, MS...I love this church, a really 'salt of the earth' kind of place. Great people, great cooking, and a love for missions. Also, the elder in charge of missions there lets me call him 'Cricket'.

Hero of the Faith

One of my favorite books ever is To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson. Judson was a pioneer missionary to Burma in the early 1800's, and one of the first (if not the very first) missionary from America. His life is a testimony of the worth of the Gospel and the importance of missions in places where the Gospel has not been taken.

If you have an hour in the car, around the house, or at the gymn, download John Piper's biographical sketch of Judson's life. You can get that here.

Missions as Fasting

Michael Oh is an MTW missionary in Japan with an amazing story. Please, please listen to this sermon about his way to view missions...it is an encouraging, sometimes shocking way to look at missions and to think about our involvement in global missions as the people of God called to be ambassadors of our great God.




Listen here: Missions as Fasting

Missions in Hymns

From "Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness" by Nikolaus von Zinzendorf

O, let the dead now hear Thy voice.
Bid, Lord, Thy banished ones rejoice
Their beauty this, their glorious dress
Jesus the Lord, our Righteousness.

Oh, that the dead would hear His voice. That's the hope of the missionary, whether here or in a foreign land.

Missions in the OT: 1 Kings 8:41-43

I love the Old Testament. I'm growing more and more fond of it by the day, it seems. Not that I ever hated it or anything, but as I've been pretty aggressively reading through the Scriptures again and outlining each book, the Spirit is awakening me to just how much we need the OT.

In 1 Kings 8, just after Solomon built the Temple and brought the Ark of the Covenant up to the Most Holy Place, he prays a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving and praise to God. In the midst of the prayer, as he prays for the people of Israel, Solomon prays this:

Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for your name's sake (for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this house, hear in heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name.

In the OT, God had the same plan that He has now (we're in NT times, by the way). As the King and Creator of the earth, He chose Israel to be His ambassadors, proclaiming the message and kingdom of God to all nations. The goal of Yahweh was never to be a local deity; He was and is King of all the earth and as the nations saw what He did for a small, unlikely band of nomads, they saw that He is "a great God, and a great King above all gods" (Ps. 95:3). The Temple itself, among other things, represented the established kingdom and presence of God, and Solomon here prays for the foreigners who will come to worship, that they may know and fear Yahweh, the true God. We can pray the same thing...except that now, the Temple has been replaced by Christ Himself. The nations don't have to come to a specific location to worship (read John 4); now the ambassadors go to the ends of the earth. Pray that the nations may know and fear our God, the same God that Solomon prayed to, and pray also for His ambassadors who go to the nations.

How the Supremacy of Christ Creates Radical Christian Sacrifice

I've listened to this sermon many, many times.

I'm prone to getting 'off-message' in my life. Little things (money, school, grades, work, football, etc.) often fight their way to the front of my mind and heart, and the Big Thing (the Kingdom) becomes peripheral. God regularly uses the sermons of John Piper, a Baptist pastor up in Minnesota, to re-focus me.

Calvin's Call to Missions

Many people are surprised when I tell them that reading Calvin is some of the sweetest, most devotional stuff that I read in seminary...most of those people have never read Calvin and/or have a distorted view of who Calvin was in the first place. I absolutely LOVE John Calvin's writings, and to tell you the truth, wouldn't mind if seminary consisted of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic bible study, English bible study, and a study of The Institutes of the Christian Religion. But...its probably a good thing that I'm not the one who sets seminary curriculum.

Anyway, I read this passage a while back, and even though it isn't explicitly about world missions, it is its foundation; in fact, it is the foundation for all of Christian life. Calvin writes in Book III, ch. 18.6, 'On "treasures in heaven"',

"If what Christ says is true--"Where our treasure is, there resides our heart" [Matt. 6:21]...believers ought to see to it that, after they have learned that this life will soon vanish like a dream, they transfer the things they want truly to enjoy to a place where they will have life unceasing. We ought, then, to imitate what people do who determine to migrate to another place, where they have chosen a lasting abode. They send before them all their resources and do not grieve over lacking them for a time, for they deem themselves the happier the more goods they have where they will be for a long time. But if we believe heaven is our country, it is better to transmit our possessions thither than to keep them here where upon our sudden migration they would be lost to us."
The Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 827

I pray that we (especially me!), as believers, can believe this...the truth that is at the center of all of Scripture: our King is bringing a kingdom that cannot be shaken! Therefore, for the believer, until the King appears, life is about establishing His kingdom through our time, money and prayers.