Time; August 30, 2018

Posted on September 1, 2018 by jgarrott

Acts 19:10 This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.

I find this verse particularly interesting in light of Acts 16:6, where it says they were “kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the Word in the province of Asia.” God has His timing for everything, and when we try to deviate from that, things don’t go well. As theoretical physicists will tell you, the whole matter of time is a mystery. There are serious scientists today who say that time travel might be possible, and they aren’t just talking about our one-second-at-a-time march into the future. The only one who understands it all is God who created it, so it makes sense to seek to follow His schedule. We tend to get all tied in knots over time issues, and paradoxically waste a lot of time in the process! We measure lives by time, and are responsible as stewards of the time we have been given. Since no one knows ahead of time just how much time they have, that calls for active trust and obedience. History has many examples of people who did remarkable things at unusual ages, from Moses and Grandma Moses who had major careers that started in advanced age to people like Mozart who had major accomplishments while quite young. We don’t get to choose which end of the spectrum we fall on, so we need to be sensitive and obedient to the Holy Spirit as to what to do when.

On the one hand I have been a stickler for time, hating to be late for anything and resenting it when others are late, but on the other hand I have shown myself to be very adept at wasting time. The Internet has certainly boosted that part of my life! The older I get the faster time seems to pass, because we experience time in proportion to how much time we’ve already experienced. When I was in the 1st grade, a year was 1/6 of my whole life. For me right now, a year is 1/70 of my life. I need to recognize that every bit of my life is in God’s hands, and use all of it faithfully doing His will on His schedule for His glory.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for what You enabled me to get done in my unstructured day yesterday, and for what You have for me today. Again, my planner is blank, but You have my day planned. Help me rest, relax, and rejoice in You, as a faithful steward of all You have placed in my hands, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Cross-cultural Evangelism; August 29, 2018

Posted on September 1, 2018 by jgarrott

Acts 17:23 “Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”

Paul adjusted his presentation to his audience. In his first missionary journey with Barnabas they always went to the synagogue first, because the Old Testament gave them an excellent entry point for presenting the Gospel, since there are so many prophecies of the Messiah. However, the synagogue in Athens gave him little exposure, so he had to use a different approach. I have heard some people claim that this approach was not good, since the results were sparse. (Acts 17:34) The point, however, is that God gave him an opportunity, he used it, and he did get some results in any case. He had a really rough audience, because these people had just about heard it all, and to them, Paul was just another “babbler.” (verse 18) Since these were philosophers, used to principles of logic and argument that we still recognize today, Paul laid out his case very logically, quoting Greek writers (verse 28) to generate a point of connection. When you think about it, the fact that any at all of his audience were converted is quite remarkable, since there were no miracles to shock people into receptivity.

I feel like Athens is a good parallel for ministry in Japan. Guinness claimed a few years ago that Japan has the highest average intelligence of any ethnic group, which would fit the philosophers of Athens. Also, the Japanese tend to treat religious ideas as perhaps interesting, but of very little practical impact on their daily lives. That too seems to fit what Paul found in Athens. (The Athenians loved to talk but did little about it, as verse 21 says.) I am faced with people who are often superstitious, concerned about whether something is “auspicious” or not, but who have little if any guiding principles in their lives, simply going by tradition and habit. Japan too is filled with shrines and temples, each one dedicated to a different deity of some sort. Preaching a singular Creator who loves them personally sounds very foreign to them, and they tend to be very afraid of becoming “un-Japanese.” Those obstacles are formidable, but as our Verse for the Year proclaims, nothing is too difficult for God. (Jeremiah 32:27) I am never to give up, but allow God to show me the right approach for each situation, not trying to apply set formulas but listening obediently to the Holy Spirit. If I will do that, He will get through to those He has chosen, and even use me in the process.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for all that You have been and are doing in and around us. Thank You for helping me realize just how little framework most Japanese have for understanding and receiving the Gospel. Enable me to break it down and get it into their context so that the barriers may be overcome. Help me indeed nurture the brother who was just baptized, as well as reach out to those others who are showing signs of being ready, so that there may be solid harvest in Your kingdom indeed, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Family Salvation; August 28, 2018

Posted on August 30, 2018 by jgarrott

Acts 16:31-34 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole family.

I really think verse 31 is one of the most quoted verses in the Bible in Japan. That’s because so many Christians are the only believer in their family, and they naturally want their whole family to be saved. I think the “missing link” in many cases, at least, is verse 32. That is to say, no one ever speaks the word of the Lord to the other members of the family. I know of many Christians who were actively cut off from their families after they “came out” as believers. I’m reminded of something I’ve heard recently, of conservative gay people saying it was much harder to come out as conservative than it was to come out as gay. In this particular instance of the jailer and his family, everyone had been made receptive by the earthquake and aftermath, so everyone listened intently. Sadly, that’s not the case for so many Japanese believers; their family members have no desire or inclination to hear about Christ. That can change. The man I baptized recently has an older sister who was the first Christian in the family, and his younger brother’s wife is a member of this church. The sister has prayed for her brother for 40 years! Naturally, she was overcome when she got the news of his baptism. Now they need to “gang up” in prayer for the younger brother! That said, verse 31 doesn’t mean that one person’s faith saves multiple people; we are all individually responsible to commit to Jesus as Lord.

This is something I have struggled with over the years. I was raised in a strongly Christian family so it wasn’t so personally significant, but even I have relatives who don’t seem to have a personal relationship with Christ. Ministering in Japan, the situation is as I’ve already described, with few Christian families. That’s why so many people cling to verse 31! Japanese society greatly values external unity, and someone changing religions greatly disturbs that. People value temporal calm more than eternal salvation! There’s a proverb that says it’s not scary to cross against the light if you do it as a group. That, along with a very strong sense of personal privacy, makes genuine personal evangelism very difficult. Someone might notice the increased peace and happiness in a friend or family member, but they aren’t likely to ask about it. It often takes a crisis before they will do so, reaching out to someone who seems to have the peace they are so acutely aware they lack. Even when that happens, the Christian in that case is often unprepared to share Christ in a way that makes any sense at all to the person asking. That’s where I come in. I need to prepare the believers to “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15) The man I just baptized says that it was his sister-in-law’s recovery from severe clinical depression, and her insistence that Jesus got all the credit, that brought him to faith, to his own considerable surprise.

Father, I do ask for more Christian families in Japan. I pray that the believers would be emboldened to share Christ with their families and friends, not fearing the rejection that might actually come. May they understand that the Holy Spirit is provided to empower them as witnesses, and rejoice to be filled and used by Him for the salvation of many, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Guidance; August 27, 2018

Posted on August 30, 2018 by jgarrott

Acts 16:7 When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.

It is fascinating and very instructive that we here have a clear case of negative guidance. We tend to think of, and desire, guidance as something positive, saying, “Do this.” However, sometime God is all about “Don’t do that.” We know from the following verses that God was intending for them to cross over into Europe for the first time, which was a momentous occasion, but they couldn’t see it from their perspective. Closed doors can be as important as open ones! We have no indication exactly how the Holy Spirit kept them from preaching in Asia, (verse 6) or would not allow them to enter Bithynia, but we have all, I think, experienced God keeping us from things that were not in His plan. The point is not to be anxious, but go with the flow of the Holy Spirit. It’s not that we aren’t to make plans or work toward goals, but it is very much that we are to allow God to clarify our vision of what those plans need to be, what those goals are. Paul was very much a “Type A” personality, and this probably wasn’t an easy lesson for him to learn. God had to use some pretty strong methods to get his attention, knocking him off of his horse on the way to Damascus (Acts 9) and having him arrested in Jerusalem ant taken as a prisoner to Rome. (Acts 21 and following) He had wanted to go to Rome, (Romans 1:11-15) but not that way! However, had he not been a prisoner in Rome, he would probably not have written several of the letters that are now part of the New Testament. Like Paul, we need to accept that God always has the best idea. Sometimes He communicates that to us ahead of time, but more often not, so we are to walk in obedient trust.

I have no grounds whatsoever to look down on Paul. God has used all sorts of things to guide me, even my own mistakes and even sins, and He has been absolutely faithful. I seem to have far less drive than Paul did, so some of the things God has done have been simply to get me off my butt. It’s hard to steer a car that isn’t moving! I face decisions all the time, some of which I don’t even recognize as decisions, so I’ve got to maintain an attitude of humble obedience. He has told me to rest, relax, and rejoice, but sometimes I have trouble doing that. The current album project is a case in point. Yesterday’s recording session had various good things about it, but some things that concerned me. It remains to be seen whether the recording that was made will be worth using, but I need to praise God for the evangelism/witnessing we were able to do. God is going to bring that album project to glorious fruition, but I’ve got to let Him do it in His way for His glory.

Father, thank You for all that Yesterday held, and not just the recording session. Thank You that the newly-baptized brother left his Bible here after the service, but quickly realized it and will be coming today to get it, so I will have some private coaching time with him. Thank You for all the other things You have planned for today. May we recognize Your plans and follow them with joy, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Salvation; August 26, 2018

Posted on August 28, 2018 by jgarrott

Acts 15:8-9 “God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.”

Once again Peter comes through on behalf of God’s plan for the Gentiles. God’s plans are really very interesting. Peter ministered largely to Jews, yet God used him to establish the principle that Gentiles are equal with Jews before God. Paul was the “Apostle to the Gentiles,” yet he is the one whom God used to establish clearly, in Romans 9-11, that He is not through with the Jews, and they are no lower in the kingdom of God than Gentiles are. Entrenched attitudes can be very hard to change, and that was what God was dealing with here. By the time you get to verse 11, you can practically hear the passion in Peter’s voice as he makes the case for salvation by grace through faith. Thinking about it, Paul was essentially quoting Peter in his famous statement on the subject. (Ephesians 2:8-9) It’s not that he was intentionally quoting, but rather that the Holy Spirit was being consistent in speaking through multiple messengers. (He does that a lot.) This whole incident arose because we are so prone to want to be able to take credit in some way for our salvation, but God makes it clear it’s all of Him. Sadly, even today churches put up all sorts of “performance tests” for those they will accept. Alcohol and tobacco use immediately come to mind. Questions of wisdom and stewardship arise with those, but they can’t be legitimate tests of salvation. The Bible stresses moderation, not abstinence, when it comes to alcohol, and tobacco originated in North America, so is naturally unmentioned in the Bible. There are behaviors that God clearly and explicitly forbids, and clinging to those certainly raises huge red flags when it comes to the Lordship of Jesus in someone’s heart and life, but the principle remains: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no-one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

As a pastor I have to keep reminding myself of this. Believers make all sorts of foolish choices, as do I, but that doesn’t change the fact of their salvation, or mine. I like what one evangelist said God told him: “You catch ’em, I’ll clean ’em.” The image of fishing is very apt. My job is indeed to make disciples, which does involve all sorts of performance issues, but I must not think, much less say, that a performance failure impinges on salvation. We do have to answer before God for our actions, and our behavior has a huge influence on how much and how well we enjoy the blessings God has for us, but those things are not the same as salvation itself. A few days ago I talked to someone whom I baptized years ago who, by his own admission, is not living a life pleasing to God, but whether he is saved or not is between him and God; I am not the judge.

Father, I’ve long struggled with the issues of holiness and legalism. Help me be a pure instrument of Your grace to all, so that I may not get in the way of their salvation but be fully useful to You in Your harvest, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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The Fear of Death; August 25, 2018

Posted on August 28, 2018 by jgarrott

Acts 14:19-20 Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. But after the disciples had gathered round him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.

It seems probable that this was the occasion of the experience Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians 12, that we would call a “near death experience.” It had to have been extremely painful, but once he had seen heaven, Paul knew that “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21) I’m sure it contributed to his boldness throughout the rest of his ministry, because the worst anyone could do would be to send him to heaven! The circumstances of Paul being stoned were ironic, and point out the danger of looking at people’s responses. The people of Lystra, having seen a genuine miracle, were ready to sacrifice bulls and worship Paul and Barnabas, but after the apostles managed to put a stop to that, the Jews from Antioch and Iconium managed to rechannel the mob mentality into stoning Paul. It really brings to mind the crowds in Jerusalem that hailed Jesus as the Messiah on Palm Sunday and then, just days later, shouted for His crucifixion. We love the adulation of the crowd, when we should be seeking the approval of our God. It’s all part of switching from a temporal to an eternal perspective. That can happen gradually, and often does, but God knew Paul needed to make the switch both quickly and thoroughly, so He allowed Paul to be stoned.

I’ve not had a near death experience, but my wife has. I certainly remember the event from my perspective! In February of 1975 she was hanging laundry outside our rental house in Sasebo and her chest started hurting, to the point that she asked me to finish hanging the clothes and she went inside and laid down. After I finished, I went into the bedroom and found her lying on her back on the bed. I knelt beside the bed, took her hand, and called her name. After several repetitions, as I recall it, she opened her eyes. I won’t go into all the details, but she had been to heaven, and was sent back because “Jack and the girls need you.” I’m deeply grateful, but I also know that the next time she dies, it would be extremely inappropriate for me to pray for her resurrection. That would be pure selfishness on my part! I had not known that she had a real fear of death before that, but she has certainly not had such a fear since then. The experience has also strengthened her to deal with a wide variety of physical problems, all the way up to Parkinson’s Disease. She knows without question that however painful or inconvenient they might be, they are temporary, and what lies beyond will more than make up for it all. (2 Corinthians 4:17) I didn’t experience all of that directly, but watching her has confirmed the faith I already have, and I too look forward to heaven. I’m certainly not fond of pain, but as Jake Hess sang, “Death ain’t no big deal.” My desire and my task is to bring as many people as possible to that position through faith in the only Savior, Jesus Christ.

Father, thank You for this reminder. This is so basic, and yet so many Christians, even, fear death, and/or are obsessed with it in some way. Thank You for the Living Hope album You have us working on. Thank You that we’ll record the first song for that tomorrow. May it be powerful not simply in preventing suicides, but in guiding many to eternal life, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Discipleship; August 24, 2018

Posted on August 27, 2018 by jgarrott

Acts 13:52 And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

This completes the account of Paul and Barnabas’ first major stop on the mainland after leaving Cyprus. John Mark had left them once they hit the coast, (Acts 14:13) so it was just the two of them. Luke records their ministry in some detail, because it was to be typical of how they operated throughout their missionary journeys. The content of their preaching and the response to it is very interesting to read, but this verse records the result of it all. You actually could say this should be the goal of every evangelistic campaign, because it is the evidence that people’s conversion was real. It’s not that someone necessarily isn’t a real Christian if they aren’t “filled with joy and the Holy Spirit,” but such a situation removes all doubt. It’s also significant that the converts are specifically called disciples. Today we tend to treat “discipleship” as a step above and beyond conversion, but the Bible knows no such distinction. It has rightly been said that the weakest part of the Church today is making disciples. In America we go so far as to separate making Jesus your Savior from making Him your Lord. The Bible says, if He’s not your Lord, He’s not your Savior! (Romans 10:9) I think it’s a blessing that recent years have brought opposition to Christianity to America, because too many people are social Christians, with little if any personal conviction and commitment. It is when proclaiming Christ costs you something that you realize how valuable it is to belong to Him.

In the home in which I was raised, it would have been much more difficult to deny Christ than to claim Him! For a home environment that’s not at all bad, but I didn’t particularly “make waves” outside the home, not “pushing my faith” on anyone. It wasn’t until I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, as the married father of two, that I first spoke to a total stranger about Jesus. Ben Wong, and I’m sure many others in the House Church movement, stresses that Jesus didn’t tell us to make converts, but to make disciples. (Matthew 28:18-20) As long as I am content to get someone to say the right words and get baptized, I’m not fulfilling the Great Commission even if I am a missionary in Japan. As has come out in the Coaching seminars I’ve attended, with Ben Wong and others, the first question becomes my own discipleship. If I am a genuine disciple, I will make more disciples for Christ, and that must be my goal.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for the message You’ve given me for Sunday, on Growth. I pray that each believer, indeed, everyone who hears the message by any means, would be convicted by Your holy Spirit and drawn into genuine discipleship, for their blessing and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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The Word of God; August 23, 2018

Posted on August 27, 2018 by jgarrott

Acts 12:24 But the word of God continued to increase and spread.

This comes right after the mention of King Herod’s rather horrific death, so I think the NIV is justified in inserting “But” at the beginning of the sentence. From the next verse Luke starts talking about Barnabas and Saul, so why is this verse here? It actually is a very significant statement. Luke doesn’t say, “the Church,” he says, “the word of God.” It wasn’t that the organization was flourishing, it was that God’s Word was doing so. That’s all the more interesting when we realize that the New Testament hadn’t really begun to be written. There were perhaps some collections of Jesus’ teaching floating around by this point, but Luke isn’t really talking about the Bible here. Rather, he is talking about the knowledge of Jesus, as in the expression, “Have you had word of that?” Where the NIV uses the word “increase,” the Japanese uses a word that might be translated “ascendant.” It includes the idea of increase, but there is a feeling of “taking over.” Jesus was the talk of the town, and as a result, more and more people were forced to decide what they were going to do about Him. That has happened almost every time there has been a genuine move of God. These days our thoughts and conversations are taken up with crime or politics or celebrities and the like, (but I repeat myself) but that is a ploy of the devil to keep us from seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. As long as we allow other things to crowd out thoughts of God and knowledge of His Son Jesus, we won’t be walking in all the good that He has planned for us.

This is certainly appropriate for me! I tend to look down on those who are obsessed with celebrities, but I’m an information junkie myself, reading and watching videos much more than I read the Bible. I do start every day with the Bible, and it does dwell in me richly, I feel, (Colossians 3:16) but I let other things dominate my thoughts too often. I earnestly desire that this verse be true of Omura, bringing in a massive harvest, but I need to be sure it’s true of me. An article I read recently pointed out that the early Church had no “Church Growth Seminars,” no “Mission Statements,” no real centralized control, yet they ended up taking over the Roman Empire within a few centuries, after starting with a handful of disciples. What they had was total commitment to Jesus as Lord. If we are to take over this city and this nation, we need exactly the same thing, starting with me.

Father, thank You for this powerful reminder. Help me not fear people’s reactions, but challenge them to full devotion, trusting Your Spirit to work in us all to transform us as we need it, so that Your name may be acknowledged as holy and Your kingdom come as Your will is done right here, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Christians; August 22, 2018

Posted on August 24, 2018 by jgarrott

Acts 11:23, 26 When he arrived and saw the evidence of the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.
The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch

Many things about the church in Antioch were significant. For one thing, it was the first place where evangelism was intentionally done toward Gentiles, as verse 20 makes clear. Despite Peter’s testimony to the church in Jerusalem, this still raised enough suspicions that Barnabas was sent to check things out, and this is the result. It was obviously God’s plan that he was sent, since Barnabas was actually a nickname that means “Son of Encouragement.” (Acts 4:36) God didn’t want to squash the Gentile believers, He wanted to encourage them, and that is what Barnabas did. It’s important to note just what he encouraged them to do: remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. New believers are generally pretty “pumped” in their new-found faith (which is why they make the most effective evangelists) but the devil wastes no time in attacking them and seeking to cool them off. All Christians should be intentional in remaining true to the Lord. Obviously the believers in Antioch took Barnabas’ encouragement to heart, because their faithfulness to Christ caused people to start calling them Christians, that is, people of Christ. Evidence is that up until then, believers were simply called “People of the Way.” (That was probably from Jesus’ famous statement that He was the way to the Father (John 14:6) and was probably Jack Hayford’s inspiration for naming his church, Church on the Way.) These believers were so focused on Christ, talking about Him all the time, that it became their collective name. Would we honestly earn that name today? In Iwate Prefecture in northern Japan there is a tale that Jesus came there, married a Japanese woman, and is buried there. I feel very sure that person was a Nestorian missionary from China who talked about Jesus so much that the locals assigned that name to him, very much like what happened in Antioch. We too need to be such “Christ persons” that people can’t know us without knowing about Jesus.

This is both significant and timely for me. With a newly-baptized believer, I need to encourage him just as Barnabas did, and allow him to be a stimulus for all the other believers. At the same time, thinking about the missionary in Iwate, I realize that conversions aren’t automatic, no matter how focused on Christ we are. However many people did believe because of his message, their numbers never reached critical mass to spread out over the whole region and nation. I’ve got to be faithful at every task that is given to me, but at the same time realize that salvation is God’s business, and not get fixated on numbers. I just need to be sure the label, People of Christ, is fully appropriate for all in this church.

Father, thank You for this reminder. If this is to be the foundation for Sunday’s message, show me what You want to say and how You want it said. May we indeed be and say and do exactly what You intend, for the salvation of many and for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Equality; August 21, 2018

Posted on August 24, 2018 by jgarrott

Acts 11:17-18 “So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?”
When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.”

This was an absolutely pivotal moment in the early Church. When you think about it, there were many moments in those first few years when the whole thing could easily have been derailed, but God didn’t let it happen. We need to remember that God is in control! That doesn’t eliminate our responsibility, much less accountability, but it should eliminate our anxiety. We tend to get that backward! We try to deny responsibility and accountability, and instead be anxious about everything. What happened here laid the foundation for the Church later accepting Paul’s ministry to Gentiles, as explained in Acts 15, and in short order the vast majority of the Church was Gentile. Paul went to great lengths in his letter to the Romans to explain that doesn’t mean God has abandoned the Jews, which is particularly significant considering the bulk of Paul’s ministry was to Gentiles. However, this episode with Peter established the principle that God’s provision of the Holy Spirit, bringing repentance unto life, is for all who will believe. We are quick to put up barriers of all sorts, but God is after repentance and faith. Anyone who exhibits those (actually, receiving faith as a gift when they repent of unbelief) is acceptable to God, regardless of the ethnic, racial, financial, or any other sort of background.

Growing up as a decidedly minority Caucasian in Japan, this understanding has come easily for me. I am grateful that Truman mandated the racial integration of US armed forces before I started attending school at Itazuke Air Force Base so I was never aware of racial segregation. That said, I was aware of some missionaries who had an automatic bias in favor of Caucasians, even though there were some Caucasian missionaries who disgraced the name of Christ. My own biases tended to be intellectual, but that’s not really any better. It is sadly obvious that those who are in favor of “big government” have such bias, feeling that they know better than the “unwashed masses” who “cling to their guns and religion.” I may have a higher than average IQ, but on God’s scale, all human distinctions are essentially meaningless. I am to accept each person as they are, as a valuable creation of God, and seek to help them enter into the relationship with Him for which they were created.

Father, thank You for the degree to which You have enabled me to see people equally. Thank You for helping me realize I still have room to grow. Help me express Christ accurately and consistently to all, drawing them to You for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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