Evangelism; September 7, 2019

Posted on September 10, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 107:1-3 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his love endures for ever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say this—
those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,
those he gathered from the lands,
from east and west, from north and south.

This whole Psalm is a recitation of things that people had done in turning their backs on God, and then what He did when they turned back to Him. This first statement encompasses all such people, and says what they should do: proclaim that the Lord is good, and His love/mercy/grace (the Hebrew has many shades of meaning) endures forever. This was written presumably after the Babylonian captivity, but it seems to apply even more today, when God has literally gathered Jews from all over the world to reconstitute the nation of Israel in the Promised Land. However, this truth isn’t limited to Jews. As Paul tells us, all who live by faith in God are children of Abraham. (Romans 4:11-12, and others) Anyone who has turned to God and discovered His deep grace and mercy needs to talk about it! We get tied in knots thinking about personal evangelism, but it is really nothing more than what this is talking about. We create all sorts of systems and train people in them, wondering why we don’t get many converts, when the Biblical pattern is far more simple: live your life in gratitude for what God has done for you, and when people ask about it, tell them. (1 Peter 3:15-16 Some translations separate the verses differently.) The problem is, few people seem to grasp just how much God has done for them, and so fail to live with a radiant hope and joy that draws others to desire it for themselves. Part of the problem is that we think we deserve an easy life, when nothing could be further from the truth. All of us have effectively spat in God’s face and participated in nailing Jesus to the cross. Failing to realize that gives us the wrong attitude right from the start. We don’t appreciate God’s grace until we understand how much we need it, but once we do, our gratitude overflows and we indeed proclaim, “The Lord is good, and His loving, gracious mercy endures forever.”

This of course applies to me as much as it does to anyone, but it didn’t really click until I was 24. When God showed me how black my heart was with pride toward Him, I was devastated, because I was raised to love Jesus and thought I was a good Christian! In the almost 50 years since then I have learned more and more of the depth and height and outright magnitude of God’s grace and love, and I expect to learn even more when I am before His throne. (Ephesians 3:17-19) Evangelism is difficult in Japan for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that it is a “shame culture” rather than a “sin culture,” but I am never to draw back from sharing the goodness of God, not as one who dispenses it but as one who has received it and wants others to do likewise.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for the people who came to see me yesterday, and for guiding our conversation so that we ended up giving quite a testimony to the other three men in my room. I pray that what they heard would pique their interest and draw them to learn more of You, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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The Character of God; September 6, 2019

Posted on September 9, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 106:47 Save us, O Lord our God,
and gather us from the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name
and glory in your praise.

This whole Psalm is an extended confession of the sins of the Jewish nation. It is honest to the point of being blunt, which I think God appreciates, since He can’t be surprised by anything. Right at the end, the Psalmist gets around to this prayer. There is no pride in it at all, which is why God has been pleased to answer it. God has indeed gathered the Jews from the nations and created one of the most vibrant countries in the world, and the only full democracy in the Middle East. However, many of the Jews are secular, and still few acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah for whom they have prayed. God isn’t through with Israel by any means, and as Paul wrote to the Romans, there is yet going to be a huge harvest.

I haven’t done all that the Jews did, but I have certainly done things that, had I been making the rules, would have disqualified me. I am to proclaim that God is a God of grace, righteousness, and holiness, and none of those aspects are to be overlooked. Throughout the history of the Church there have been some who have focused on one aspect or another, thereby slighting the others. Today we have the “hyper-grace movement,” and it too is a sad deviation. Grace means nothing if there are no rules! I am to believe and teach the whole Word of God, not putting Him into any sort of box, so that His Word may be fulfilled in and through me.

Father, thank You for the nation of Israel as a demonstration of Your character. Thank You that I was born the same year as the current state of Israel! May Israel, and I, be increasingly obedient to You in every area, so that the works of the devil be destroyed and You alone glorified. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Praising God; September 5, 2019

Posted on September 9, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 106:2 Who can proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord
or fully declare his praise?

The answer to this question is obvious, and is implied in the very asking of it: nobody. We can’t even know all that God has done, so how can we proclaim it to others? The point is to have our eyes, ears, and hearts open all the time to recognize what God has done and is doing, and give Him the praise for it all.

Having had hernia surgery under general anesthesia yesterday, I’m not in good shape at this point. But whatever shape I’m in, I can choose to keep my focus on my Lord, and give Him the praise and glory that He alone deserves.

Father, thank You for getting me through the surgery. Thank You that You are going to get me through the recovery period, however long it takes and whatever is involved. May I be Your agent through it all, that those around me may be drawn to You through me, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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God’s Dominion; September 4, 2019

Posted on September 8, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 103:22 Praise the Lord, all his works
everywhere in his dominion.
Praise the Lord, O my soul.

This verse echoes the first verse of this Psalm, but whereas the first verse focuses on the private, the internal, this verse expands to all creation. I like one phrase in particular here: “everywhere in His dominion.” We talk about, and pray about, “God’s kingdom,” but we have the persistent tendency to think of that in terms of territory. God created everything, so if it’s simply a matter of territory, everywhere is the Kingdom of God. However, it’s actually much more pointed than that. God’s kingdom is where His will is honored and obeyed. That’s what “dominion” is all about. “Domain” is used in various ways in science, from computers to biology to whatever, and it always means authority, where certain rules are followed. In the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come” and “Thy will be done” are completely inseparable. When we are unwilling to do God’s will, we are taking ourselves out of His kingdom, His domain. By following “everywhere in His dominion” with, “Praise the Lord, O my soul,” David is including himself in God’s dominion, under His authority. As David demonstrated later in his life, this is a commitment that has to be maintained and renewed. If we think, “Oh I’ve done that,” we lay ourselves open to all sorts of temptations. We need to live constantly in the awareness that “Jesus is my Lord.”

I made an honest commitment to Christ at age seven, but that commitment didn’t get renewed the way I’ve just mentioned. I had some times of real worship along the way, but God had to bring me up hard when I was 24, showing me the horrible mess I had allowed my heart to get into. Recently He has encouraged me to use the faith confession, “I serve the Lord of Glory.” When He first gave me that phrase, “glory” was what stood out to me, but I see now that “serve” is just as important. I don’t get to boss God around! Being allowed to serve the Lord of Glory is a huge privilege, since it carries authority and many other things that can be had no other way, but I’ve got to remember that I serve, I don’t dictate. Yes, I’m a child of the King, but I am also His servant. I may ask freely, and am encouraged to do so, but it must always be as Jesus prayed, “Not my will, but Yours be done.” (Matthew 26:39) Only then will His perfect plan for my life be fulfilled, for my greatest blessing and His glory.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You that I’ll be having hernia surgery this morning, and for all the preparations that have been made. Thank You for all the people who love me and are praying for me. I ask that You bless them abundantly as they pray for me, so that You may receive all the praise, honor, and glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Father God; September 3, 2019

Posted on September 8, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 103:13-14 As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.

I have every line of this Psalm underlined, and it is rich indeed. I could preach for days on it! However, right now I’ll limit myself to these two verses. Right off the bat we encounter something that is problematical in modern society, because many men seem to have forgotten – or have never learned – how to be fathers. Biologically it is very simple to become a father. A few years ago I read of a man who had 17 children by almost as many different women, and he wasn’t about to support them all. He certainly didn’t have compassion on his children, as this talks about. Even in what are called “intact” families, many fathers struggle to relate rightly to their children, not only because of the pressures of modern society but because they weren’t raised with a valid example to follow. That has produced what has been called a “father wound” in very many people today. We are born with an innate need for not just a mother to birth and nurture us, but a father to “raise us up in the way appropriate for us.” (Proverbs 22:6) We need a father as a loving authority figure to give us boundaries and stability, and far too few people really have that. It is downright astounding when a person with such a father wound really discovers Father God and allows Him to heal them. All sorts of things are turned around and bondages are released. That said, there is one more thing here about Father God specifically, and that is what it says in verse 14. Human fathers can know their children only to a degree, because every human is an individual, and besides, we don’t even know ourselves perfectly. However, God is our Creator; He has our original blueprints! He knows us better than we could ever know ourselves, and He treats us accordingly. He certainly knows our every weakness and He will not over-stress us, unless it is an area in which we specifically need to be broken. (1 Corinthians 10:13) We may not have a human father we can trust fully, but God is more than worthy of our total trust, and then some.

This is very applicable to me right now on a physical level, as I will be entering the hospital today for inguinal hernia surgery tomorrow. I have had x-rays and CT scans and other tests, but God knows exactly what the situation is, not just with my body but with every part of my being. The surgeon is young, but God is the Ancient of Days, and He certainly has no lack of either wisdom or skill. Likewise, Cathy isn’t used to being here without me, and she has anxiety about how to do various tasks. Not only do we have the convenience of cell phones, God certainly knows how to do everything, and He can guide her even in things I don’t know how to do! He has given us both this time as training in how to rest, relax, and rejoice, trusting Him with every detail and being fully obedient to everything He tells us to do.

Father, thank You for this encouraging Word this morning. I pray that Cathy and I would both walk in it fully, not just in this period of my hospitalization but for the rest of our lives, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Spiritual Pride; September 2, 2019

Posted on September 3, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 101:1-2 I will sing of your love and justice;
to you, O Lord, I will sing praise.
I will be careful to lead a blameless life—
when will you come to me?
I will walk in my house
with blameless heart.

I see this Psalm as the perfect setup to David’s sin with Bathsheba. To me it reeks of spiritual pride, and that is the perfect invitation to the devil to come in and do his thing. As it famously says in Proverbs, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) In this Psalm David seems to be focused on how much better he is than other people, or at least some people. As Jesus pointed out in His story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, (Luke 18:9-14) that is very dangerous indeed. The things that David insists he does are not bad to do, the problem is in his patting himself on the back, especially in contrast to others. The last part of verse 2 here seems especially ironic, because it was as David was “walking in his house” that he spotted Bathsheba on the roof of her house. (I have always wondered whether she chose that location deliberately, aiming for exactly what happened.) As Paul warns us, “If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:12) All pride is dangerous, but spiritual pride is most dangerous. It blinds us to our own weaknesses and opens us up to just about any lie the devil wants to tell us. We see it all the time, with respected church leaders feeling the rules apply to others but not to them. The results of that are tragic. A parenthetical comment in the book of Numbers is actually very important: “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.” (Numbers 12:3) That was an essential requirement, as much power and authority as he had been given. As Jesus said several times and other New Testament writers echoed, in His kingdom, the way up is down.

Pride has been a snare to me all my life. Gifted in many areas, I have tended to take God’s gifts for granted, as though I somehow deserved them and they made me better than others. I realize now that attitude could have led me to become a sociopath! I have learned the hard way that I am as sinful by nature as anyone else, and without God’s grace and mercy I am hopeless. The tricky thing is, the devil tempts me to be proud of being humble! I’ve got to recognize his tricks and stand against them, on the firm foundation of submission to God. (James 4:7) God in His mercy has allowed various things to remind me of my dependence on Him. I have been proud of my good health, so tomorrow I enter the hospital for surgery for an inguinal hernia! In a number of ways that’s a good thing. Yesterday I was forced to leave setting up for lunch entirely to the men of the church, because lifting heavy things is definitely not a good thing at this point. I am to be grateful for all that God has done and is doing in and through me, while taking personal credit for nothing, but knowing that it is all His grace.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Help me indeed walk as You intend, in total obedience and gratitude toward You, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Eternal God; September 1, 2019

Posted on September 3, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 100:5 For the Lord is good and his love endures for ever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

We don’t worship a flash in the pan! In a world where the rate of change has gone up to the point that it has triggered a sharp increase in mental illness, it make a huge difference to know the One who is the very definition of permanence. After all, even this planet we live on is going to be destroyed someday. The Bible has many reminders like this one, because even though people back then didn’t have to deal with the rate of change that we do, things still changed constantly. It is interesting that the more we have to deal with the reality that we ourselves are impermanent, the less tolerance we have for external change. A viral political moment recently was when a 92-year-old woman told a presidential candidate, “Don’t mess with my health care!” That’s why it can be very difficult to persuade older people to move into facilities where they can get the care they need. It’s not that their current situation is ideal, it’s that it’s familiar, and change is both scary and fundamentally distasteful. The thing is, we have to deal with both growth and entropy, whether we like it or not. Growth is quite literally part of the definition of life itself; to the day we die, we are growing new cells and sloughing off or absorbing old ones. And then there’s entropy, the scientific principle that everything runs down in the direction of chaos. Aging is actually one of the many demonstrations of that, but the very fact that the universe exists is proof that there is One who is greater than entropy, and He is who we have the incredible privilege of worshiping and getting to know. He is outside of time, since time is defined by matter, and He created matter in the first place. Accordingly, it stands to reason that “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8) The good news is, as this verse states, that God is good. If He weren’t, we’d be totally up the creek! However, as this says so clearly, He is not only totally reliable, He is totally worth relying on. The apostle John called Him light (1 John 1:5) and love. (1 John 4:8) He is the rock, (a very common Old Testament metaphor for Him) the stability, that we crave.

The older I get, the more aware I am of this issue. As a much younger person I was always up for something new. I still enjoy new things, but the familiar is very comfortable, and new things can be somewhat scary, which is a strange thing for me to realize. The good thing for me is that I indeed know the One who is eternal, and I find my rest and my stability in Him. (2 Timothy 1:12) I don’t have to fear new stuff, because my eternity is already determined. Right now I’m facing hernia surgery in a few days. I know that’s not so serious, but it will be my first experience of general anesthesia since I had my tonsils out at age 4, which I don’t remember. My wife has had multiple operations, including brain surgery, and anesthesia has never been a problem for her, but it’s new for me. This will give me a new point of contact and empathy with her! A more important point is that the church needs to change and grow, and I must not fear that change either. There’s a song that I translated from the Japanese that has the line, “Even though the earth may be shaken, mountains may be cast into the sea, I’ll not fear, because I put my trust in Thee.” That is true, whether the mountains are literal or figurative.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Help Cathy and me both continue to grow in faith, trust, and obedience in the days ahead. May we both accept whatever changes You have for us with peace and joy, knowing that You never change, and we need to. Thank You. Praise God!

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God’s Holiness; August 31, 2019

Posted on September 2, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 99:5 Exalt the Lord our God
and worship at his footstool;
he is holy.

Three times in this Psalm, here and in verses 3 and 9, the Psalmist says that God is holy, as a reason to praise and worship Him. In terms of poetic structure, I get the impression this may have been something of a “call and response,” with the leader intoning or singing the first part of the verse and the choir, or perhaps the whole congregation, coming in with, “He is holy.” We tend to pay very little attention to the fact that God is perfectly holy, and even less to the fact that He calls us to be holy! (1 Peter 1:15-26, and many OT Scriptures) However holiness is one of the essential characteristics of God, and we ignore it to our peril. It is because God is perfectly holy that He cannot simply excuse sin; it must be dealt with. I often use the illustration of matter and antimatter, from physics. Every form of matter in the universe has its mirror image, which physicists call antimatter. (Why they can’t detect more antimatter is one of the mysteries that has yet to be solved.) When matter and antimatter come in contact, both are destroyed by being converted totally to energy, in a reaction more violent than a nuclear bomb. Using that as an analogy for God’s holiness and our sinfulness breaks down at only one point: God is not destroyed, only we are. It was to avoid our destruction that God gave His Son to deal with the problem of our sin. (John 3:16-17) However, we have to receive Christ’s work on the cross in faith in order to become holy, and that is the whole process of salvation. Those who want to “be saved” but don’t want to live holy lives miss the whole point of it all. I love a song written by a friend of mine, Makoto Iwabuchi, that he allowed me to translate. In English the first line says, “Spirit, flow from the throne of God and cleanse me and fill my heart and make me holy, like You.” That is a prayer God loves to answer! We focus on the power of God’s Spirit sometimes to the point of forgetting that He is the Holy Spirit. We need to have a grasp of the holiness of God, and respond appropriately.

This of course applies to me as much as it does to anyone. I am quite guilty of having taken the holiness of God lightly far more than I like to think about. I am very aware of the Biblical tension of being and becoming, now/not yet. God has made us to be holy in Christ, (1 Corinthians 1:30) but we are far from living it out fully. The Japanese term for “saints” is “holy people.” Paul’s usage makes it very clear that every believer is a saint! Not only am I to live as a saint, a holy person myself, as a pastor I am to teach, encourage, and admonish all those in my care to do likewise. A few years ago we used 1 Peter 2:9 as our Scripture for the Year: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” And of course we sing that verse, in a different translation. I need to grasp what that means myself, and lead others to do likewise.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Help me indeed walk more and more fully in Your holiness, leading others to do likewise, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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God’s Salvation; August 30, 2019

Posted on September 1, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 98:2-3 The Lord has made his salvation known
and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
He has remembered his love
and his faithfulness to the house of Israel;

This was obviously written about the nation of Israel, perhaps after some great military victory. My first thought was that it was after the return from Babylonian captivity, but in that case reference to Judah, rather than Israel, would seem likely. Today it can be sung again, exactly as written, because again the national name is Israel. God’s dealings with Israel are indeed a demonstration of His power, His salvation if you will, to everyone on earth. Racial prejudice and animus exists in many forms across the earth, but antisemitism is in a class by itself, and the only explanation I can come up with is that it is at its core a rebellion against God, and thus a hatred for His chosen people. That has been extended, in many cases, to Christians. For example, over the past several years there has been a growing movement in India among the Dalit (the lowest caste in Hinduism) and the tribal people (who are in no caste at all) to abandon Hinduism, since it has been a source of oppression for them. I have read that Hindu fundamentalists have told them, “You can become Buddhist, or even Muslim if you like, but if you become Christian, we will kill you.” “Anti-proselytizing” laws, in India and elsewhere, are almost exclusively aimed at Christians. To me it seems obvious that the devil doesn’t care what religion you are, so long as you aren’t worshiping the Creator in spirit and in truth. It is no accident that the mullahs in Iran call Israel, Satan, and America, the Great Satan. That’s why it is so unique and precious that America has a “Judaeo-Christian heritage,” attempting to follow the God of the Bible, however imperfectly. Those within the country who are trying to tear down that heritage to “transform this nation” are doing so in direct rebellion against the God of the Bible. America’s many successes have enabled it to become the greatest missionary-sending nation in history, but recent spiritual decline has caused many previously missionary-receiving countries to take up the slack. In any case, God’s power, his salvation, is evident for all with eyes to see, and the devil hates that.

I was born as an American in Occupied Japan. Around that time, any American preaching on a street corner could gather a crowd, and probably gain a few people who wanted to become Christians. That was because it seemed evident that “the God of the Americans” was more powerful than the gods of the Japanese. After all, the Japanese had called their suicide bombers “divine wind,” invoking supernatural aid. However, the supply of missionaries, and perhaps their vision of their task, were not up to the challenge, and the period of rapid church growth was very brief. I have no illusion that America is, or ever has been, perfectly faithful to the God of the Bible, but I do know that America has attempted to follow that God more than any nation other than Israel. Today, Israel and America are both thoroughly secular, but I am convinced that to the degree they cling to their Creator, they will demonstrate the power, the salvation, of God.

Father, that was certainly unexpected! Thank You that You care about the affairs of nations, just as You care about individuals. I do pray that You would be acknowledged and Your sovereignty established on every level, from the international down to the personal, so that Your will may indeed be done as perfectly on earth as it is in heaven, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Light; August 29, 2019

Posted on August 31, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 97:11 Light is shed upon the righteous
and joy on the upright in heart.

The Japanese is very specific about the original Hebrew figure of speech here. It says, “Light is scattered like seed for the righteous, and joy for those with an upright heart.” Not only is the image of scattering seed striking, it also specifies “for,” rather than simply “upon.” I know that in English we say, “shed light on,” but it seems to me that sometimes that doesn’t seem to be for the benefit of the one so illuminated. What God does is for our good, even when it’s punishment! (If we weren’t punished we wouldn’t correct our ways, and that would be the greater tragedy.) The image of scattering seed immediately brings to mind Jesus’ famous parable of the sower and the soil. (Matthew 13:3-9, etc.) Here, the quality of the soil isn’t in doubt, because it specifies “righteous” and “upright in heart.” That said, seed still has to be taken into the soil for it to germinate properly. Just yesterday I realized that some leftover beet seed that I had simply scattered in a planter has finally germinated, even though we ate all the beets out of the garden itself some weeks ago! God does plant His light, His joy, in our hearts but we don’t always realize it immediately. In any case, the benefits of righteousness and having an upright heart are limitless, just as I preached on a few weeks ago.

As a pastor I am constantly exhorting people to live lives of righteousness with upright hearts, but I must not think that because I do so, my heart is always right. I’ve got to walk in all humility, allowing the Holy Spirit to shed His light on every dark corner in my heart and life. Any time He turns up something not pleasing to God, I’ve got to repent immediately! I am never to fear His light, because I know it is always for my benefit, whatever it turns up. Like ultraviolet light is sometimes used as a disinfectant, God’s light has deadly effect on anything that is not of Him. I am to rejoice in that, not trying to protect or hang onto anything that His light might destroy. Sometimes I have been surprised, discovering that He had prompted something I had thought was just me! And here’s the tricky part: I’m not to be righteous and upright for the sake of the benefits, but because my Lord is certainly worthy of nothing less. As He spoke to me a little while back, I serve the Lord of glory! His servants, His children, have everything supplied, so my relationship with Him must be my focus, rather than anything else. (Matthew 6:33)

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for the incredible privilege of being Your child, (John 1:12) Your servant. Help me live that out in all faithfulness, so that all of Your purposes for me may be fulfilled on Your schedule for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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