Light of Togo

Here it is at last.  Sorry that it took so long, but there was a little trouble getting the audio file off of the church computer.  I know that you were all anxiously waiting to listen to me speak in French for 25 minutes!  Try not to fall asleep!

Just to give you some idea of what I’m talking about, I preached from Colossians 2:1-10, focusing mostly on verses 6-10.  The basic idea was that Paul instructed us to walk in Christ in the same manner in which we received Christ.  He then goes on to warn of those who would add unnecessary things to the Christian life, such as religious traditions, laws, and human philosophies.  So, just as we were saved by faith, in grace, in receiving the life of Christ, so we are to walk in faith, by grace, fully dependent on the life of Christ which dwells in us.  Because, as Paul points out, we are complete in Him.  We need not search elsewhere for finding out how to live the Christian life.

As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

The love of God is unfathomable.  There is no sin, no error, no mistakes in God.  He is entirely perfect and therefore so is His love.  Jesus brought directly to this earth the perfect love of God.  The love between He and His Father was unselfish, untainted, and perfect in every way.  It is with this love that Jesus loves us.  Jesus was reminding His discples here that His relationship of abiding in the love of the Father was being shared with them, and that they could be partakers of the perfect love of Christ.

He exhorts them to “continue in His love.”  This is not to say, “Make sure that you behave yourselves so that I will continue to love you.”  His love doesn’t work this way.  Romans 5:8 tells us that, “…God commendeth (demontrated) his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  If His love for us was based upon our performance or something special within us, we would never receive His love!  He loves us even though we are completely unworthy of love. Continuing in His love is more like saying, “Keep walking in my love; keep partaking of my love; keep enjoying and sharing my love with others.”  In the following few verses, we will see how Jesus explains what continuing in His love looks like.

It seems that ever since the summer started, we have been going non-stop. In all the busyness though, we’ve managed to take advantage of the sometimes nice weather and do some really fun things together. I fully intended to write blog entries about each one of them as they happened, but blogging often has to take a back seat to other things.

So, here is a whole summer of fun wrapped up in one long blog post. I have included two different kinds of photo slideshows that I’m experimenting with so please let me know if you have any difficulty viewing them.
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Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

We exist to glorify God. Period.

If you have not come to the point yet where you realize that the sole purpose for your existence on this planet is to glorify God, you must not have ever read the Bible. There are countless ways in which a follower of Christ can bring glory to God, but here in this passage Jesus tells us that one way is in bearing fruit.  Again, let’s not forget what Jesus is referring to when He talks about fruit.  God is glorified when we show His love through our lives, when we express the joy of knowing Christ, when we exercise faith in the unfailing nature of God.  As John Piper says in his excellent book on missions, Let the Nations Be Glad, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”  When He is everything to us, He is most glorified.

As the branch abides in the vine, the fruit producing process is simply a natural outflow of the life of the vine.  Imagine yourself at a local farm, where you are strolling through the rows of trees and plants, taking in all the sights and smells of non-city life.  Suddenly, as you pass by the grape vines, you hear a familiar but out-of-place sound.  It is the sound of struggle.  You bend your ear to distinguish the source, but you see no one.  Then something catches your eye.  It is a vine, to which is attached a small branch, on which is no fruit.  This comes as no surprise to you since it is not yet the season for grapes.  However, you see and hear that this little branch is grunting and groaning, struggling and squirming with all it’s might, trying to push out some fruit.  You say to the branch, “Hey buddy, what are you doing?”  He stops his efforts briefly and responds, “I’m making fruit!”  You try explaining to him that he can’t do it by all that struggling, and that it’s not even the season for it, but he turns a deaf ear and continues his travail.

As silly as this illustration is, it is a mirror of many Christians who have their focus on the wrong things.  Here is a question: is bearing fruit a good thing?  Yes, of course.  But does it mean that it should be the focus of all our attention?  We must realize that fruit in the Christian life is the result of our attention being fully on our abiding in Jesus and on the glorifying of God.  It is much like the sinner who tries to “be saved” by living a pseudo Christian life, without first going to the source of this life which is Jesus.

The last part of this verse can be a bit tricky.  At first glance, it appears to be telling us that discipleship is conditional and based upon the fruit that we produce.  If this is the case, how much is “much fruit?”  How can we ever be sure if we are disciples of Christ or not?  This dangerous thinking leads to many errors, such as putting all kinds of external stipulations on determining whether or not somebody is “right with God” or not.  I have seen and experimented this kind of Christianity, and in it there are many extra-biblical man-made rules that many times take priority over simple Bible truth.

In a situation like this, it is helpful to consult the original language of the text.  From the study that I have done, it appears that the idea is this: Fruitfulness in the Christian life is not a condition which is required to become a disciple of Christ, but rather it is the proof that one already is a disciple.  Jesus once said that you can tell whether a tree is good or bad by its fruit.  A vibrant, healthy tree will produce good fruit, but a dead or dying tree will produce undesirable fruit or no fruit at all.  The point of this parable was to show that what the tree is, it will produce.  It would be silly to say that the good fruit on the limbs is what makes the tree good.  But it is perfectly acceptable to say that the fruit on the limbs is good because the tree is good.  We must be careful not to reverse this order.  We bear fruit because we are disciples of Christ.  All Christians bear fruit.  It’s not always the exact same kind or quantity of fruit for everyone, but all Christians bear fruit because all Christians are disciples of Jesus Christ.  There is no such thing as a “non-discipleship Christianity.”

So where are your priorities, your focus?  On struggling and straining to push out fruit on your own?  On the glory of God?  Maybe on neither of these things.  The Word of God challenges us to abide in Jesus, rest in His life as our sufficiency, and to do all things for the purpose of glorifying God.  And through this God will bring forth fruit in us, showing that we are followers of Christ.

There were many of you who were praying for my first sermon in French, which I preached on Sunday night. It actually went much better than I thought it would. Sections that were tripping me up in practicing (yes, because it was in a different language I did “practice.” Sounds weird, but it helped!) didn’t seem to be difficult at all once I was in the flow of the message. People said that it sounded very natural and easy to understand. I say all that not to brag, but to say GLORY TO GOD! All of the praise goes only to Him, because without His direct enabling I would be entirely incapable of preaching or learning a second language.

I had intended to record it on video to put on the blog, but unfortunately I miscalculated the remaining battery life in the video camera and it shut off right after the singing and announcements.  Oops!  Fortunately, they recorded it through the church’s sound system and I should be able to at least put the audio up in a few days once I receive it.  Not that I expect non-French speakers to listen to the entire message, but I figured that maybe you’d like to at least hear what it sounded like.  By the way, have you ever heard yourself speak on a recording?  It’s really bizarre, right?  It’s even more strange in a foreign language!

Ever since moving to Quebec, we’ve been telling our parents about the city and how much they would enjoy it. Tiffany’s parents were able to come for a visit last October, and my parents have been planning a trip for this summer. Well, the summer has flown by and my parents are here already. They took a red-eye flight on Tuesday night and arrived Wednesday morning. Needless to say, they were VERY tired. After my mom woke from an afternoon nap, my dad said, “I’m feeling pretty good! I thought I’d be more tired, but I’m really not.” This is a photo of him one hour later.

They had a good and long night’s sleep last night, so this evening we are headed to Old Quebec for a tour of the city and to see the Moulin à images, which is a multimedia show that is projected onto a massive building.

We are very happy to have them here, and we’re glad that my dad finally woke up from his not being very tired.

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Hmm, let’s see here, what do I really want?  A professional Canon or Nikon SLR camera would be nice.  Oh, and all the lenses too.  An iPhone could really come in handy.  A tennis racket that could make me play like Rafael Nadal would be awesome.  Let’s see, what else?  Oh yes, the biggest, fastest Mac computer on the market.  All the best, super lightweight backpacking gear and a high clearance 4WD vehicle to get to all the best hiking spots.  Well, I guess that’s enough for now.  So alright, Lord, I ask for all of these things, in your name of course.  Well, I’m waiting!

Do you ever feel like your prayers aren’t getting answered?  God gives us the promise that He will answer our prayers, but sometimes we are just ignorant to the fact that His answer may be a definite and certain “NO!”  Our problem most of the time is that we are praying for the wrong person, and I am just as guilty of this as anyone else, although not quite as bad as the exaggerated example above.  We pray most often for the one who we are most concerned about pleasing - ourselves.

James 4:3 tells us about praying for our needs, for our desires, for our “things” that we think make us happy.  It says, Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

The key to John 15:7 is the phrase and my words abide in you. I truly believe there is a great difference between knowing the Word of God, and the Word abiding in us.  The words of Christ abiding in us produces a change of mentality, a change of focus, and a change of our desires.  Instead of dwelling on what we need, want, and crave for, we begin to pray according to God’s plans, His purposes, and His desires.  God never intended prayer to be a service bell for our every whim in the cushy mansion of luxury that we like to call our life.  It is intended to be the line of communication between commander and soldier as He carries out His plans through you.

Perhaps you, like me, need to begin praying more biblically.  As Jesus did, we ought to pray, “I don’t seek my will, Father, but let yours be done through me.”  God desires to give us what we ask for, but are we asking for what God desires?  I encourage you to know Jesus more through His Word.  Let it abide and take root in you, that you might begin praying more for God and His desires and a lot less for ours.

Click here to download a printable PDF copy of this letter: June ‘08

I’m not sure that we’ve ever talked so much in all our lives.  In the past month, it seemed that every day was spent with friends, our tutor, conversation partners, or anyone else who speaks French.  This has been a great opportunity to put into practice what we have been learning for the past year.  If you’ve ever learned a foreign language, you know how much more difficult speaking is compared to “textbook learning.”  It is encouraging though to look back and see the progress we’ve made and to look forward to being relatively fluent one day in Africa as we evangelize, disciple, and encourage all in French!

Along those lines, I’d like to ask that you pray for me as I will be preaching my first sermon in French on July 20th.  I wrote it during my theological course, and have been meeting with our pastor here to smooth out the rough edges.  I am a bit nervous just because it will be my first time preaching in French, but I pray that God will work through it to deliver His Word despite my mispronunciations and backwards English sentence structure!

If you have not yet done so, I’d like to encourage you to visit our blog where I have begun a verse by verse study on John chapter 15.  This is a great way for me to dig a little deeper than normal into the Bible and I hope that you can follow along and do the same.

With all of our Togo coworkers scattered all over the map, it is at times difficult to keep in touch with them, but lately we’ve had the opportunity to speak with them through the internet using Skype.  From talking with them about future plans and preparations for Togo, it makes us all the more excited to finish strong in our language learning and get to Togo.  We are looking forward to the day when all of the missionaries are working together, reaching the Togolese with the gospel of Christ for the glory of God.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support!

There is a long-running story about missionaries and used tea bags.  It comes from many years ago when people had the mentality of “well, we can’t use this junk, so let’s give it to a missionary!”  Occasionally, missionaries would actually receive tea bags that had already been used.  Thankfully that mentality is long gone…well, almost.  A couple weeks ago, we received a package from the States with a few goodies in it, and to our surprise some used tea bags as well.  Yes, that’s right, used tea bags.  What made it even worse is that it came from our home church! However, if you knew the people who sent it to us, you would immediately know, as we did, that it was completely a joke.  It was from our great friends Mark and Tami Norwood.  We have told them that story and they have often joked around with us that when we are gone they will send us some.  I never thought that they would really do it though!  Just in case you’re wondering, they did send some other, more useful things too!

If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

Here we have probably the most controversial and misunderstood verse in this passage.  Some common interpretations are: 1. that these non-abiding branches are true Christians who somehow completely separate themselves from Christ, loose their salvation, and are sent to hell; 2. that these are Christians who stop abiding (what this means is debated), and are therefore relegateed to a state of complete uselessness; 3. that those who do not abide in Christ have never been a partaker of His life.  They may be attached to the vine in a purely physical sense, but they have never received the life of the vine and therefore have never produced any fruit.

In verse 2, Jesus referred to, “every branch in me that beareth not fruit.”  It is suggested by many experts who are much more “Greeky” than me that in the original language the reference to “in me” doesn’t convey the same idea as other places in the Bible, for instance when Paul uses the term “in Christ,” meaning all who are saved.  They say that it has a much broader scope here in John 15, likely referring to all people.

The Bible tells us that we are all products of Jesus Christ, whether we are followers of His or not.  He has created us and we all receive our life from Him and thus are physically “in Him,” but not all people are receiving His life and therefore are not bearing fruit.

This verse is serves as a simple reminder to believers in Christ, and as a warning to those who reject Him.  For Christians, it is impossible for us to disconnect ourselves from the vine.  We may struggle, we may not bear as much fruit as Jesus desires, but we can never loose that life of the vine which abides in us.  God will prune and clip our lives in His work of bearing fruit through us.  But for those who reject the life of the vine, there is a day coming when you will stand before the righteous and perfect judge of the world, and He will declare that you never received the forgiveness of sins and the life of Jesus Christ, which is the only thing that can save you from eternal judgment.  It is an eternity in hell that awaits those who do not believe on Jesus Christ by faith and receive His life.  If that describes you, don’t hesistate to come to Him to receive freely the forgiveness of sin, the life of Christ, and an assurance of spending eternity in Heaven.

Do you have any thoughts about this verse?  If so, feel free to post a comment.