Let the Nations Be Glad

I enjoyed lunch today with a guy whose family has started attending Heritage this fall. He is 28 years old and a native-born Korean. (Yes, he's the real thing, unlike yours truly.) He and his wife moved from South Korea to work on a Master's degree in Educational Leadership from Bob Jones University.

We spent most of the first hour talking about his upbringing, how he came to Christ, and so forth. A number of comments piqued my interest: his overwhelming sense of conviction as a 17-year-old, his recognition of the joy in other Christian teenagers that prompted him to attend their church, and an older friend who confronted him two years later about his need to repent of his good deeds and trust solely in Christ.

But what brought me unusual joy was the reason he came to the States. "I was reading a book," he said, "by a very good author: John Piper." "Oh," I said, "which book?" I expected Desiring God or The Pleasures of God or Don't Waste Your Life.

His reply: Let the Nations Be Glad. "It was this book," he affirmed, "that taught me that my life is all about worship--and that I should give my life to teach others to worship this great God."

Behold our Sovereign! He used a pastor in Minnesota to write a book in the late 1990s that would subsequently be translated into Korean so that he might move a twenty-something Christian (with his expectant wife and young daughter) to South Carolina so that he might join our congregation and be sent out to establish a Christian school in yet another corner of the world--all for the sake of his name.

Who is like our God?