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?

Pray for Turkey

One of our missionaries sent us the following e-mail from “Pastor Carlos” in Turkey. Read below and pray.

Dear brothers and sisters,

I’m writing this update to ask you for some URGENT prayer. As you know my Apologetics book of about 800 pages is being published; it answers Islamic objections from a well-known Muslim writer against the Bible.

Today a National TV channel (HaberTürk) called me to ask me to appear at a live TV debate program this Friday November 20th at 8:00pm local time [1pm eastern standard time]. The program is about the reliability of the New Testament, and will last 2 hours. I will be debating with an Islamic Scholar and a journalist.

Many times in these types of programs awkward and uncomfortable questions may be brought up. So please pray for wisdom and the help of the Holy Spirit to be able to give good answers and an effective witness. I can’t emphasize enough what an important witnessing tool this program will be because it will reach to millions of living rooms.

This will also be an opportunity to advertise the book which is a solid document on the reliability of the Bible. Don’t forget that many souls are looking for Jesus in Turkey but they don’t know if they can trust in His words.

Please pray as well that this won’t have an adverse effect for obtaining my work permit which is being processed right now after our application last month.

I would appreciate it if you could forward this letter to any prayer partners or prayer chains that you may have. Thank you in advance.

Chapell on Becoming Merely Reflective in Worship

I've been reading Bryan Chapell's newest book Christ Centered Worship this week, much to my delight. Chapell is one of my favorite authors. Holiness by Grace prompted a radical, sanctifying paradigm shift in my understanding. So when I saw he'd written on worship, I was thrilled.

His first few chapters trace the liturgical histories of Rome, Luther, Calvin, and Westminster. In his chapter "Westminster's Story," he points out that the divines emphasized the role of the spoken Word. "The goal of most Reformers was to renew the church through understanding of and faithfulness to the Scriptures" (66). This approach has spread through the English-speaking Protestant world--and for good reason. Nevertheless, Chapell identifies that there are pros and cons to this approach:

The consequences of making worship primarily about knowledge are both positive and negative in post-Reformation Protestantism. On the positive side, believers are consistently urged to worship in spirit and in truth. Ideally, they are led to heart engagement with their God not by sentiment nor by superstition, but by right understanding of his Word. Such worship protects the church from error and the believer from idolatry.

The negative impact of turning the sanctuary into the lecture hall is training believers to become merely reflective about the gospel in worship and tempting them to believe that right worship is simply about right thought. As a consequence, the worship focus becomes study, accumulating doctrinal knowledge, evaluating the Sermon, and critiquing the doctrinally imprecise. Congregational participation, mutual encouragement, heart engagement, expressions of grief for sin, and joyous thanksgiving may increasingly seem superfluous, or even demeaning. Celebration is dismissed as "charismatic," awe is lost, and sacrament is reduced to remembrance instead of encounter with the presence of the risen Lord. As another has written, even the praise can become more about "exhortation to thanksgiving than giving thanks." When this happens, then those whose hearts yearn to respond to God in all the ways his Word describes (and all the ways he has made us to worship) will seek him elsewhere--including those places where truth has been sacrificed to experience (67).

Chapell's analysis is thought-provoking, particularly as we prepare for corporate worship this Sunday. Will we worship only in truth?

Free Audio of John Piper's Desiring God

This month christianaudio is offering John Piper's Desiring God for free. From their announcement:

Desiring God by John Piper is the free audiobook download for November; one of the best-selling and most popular titles ever published by christianaudio!

Scripture reveals that the great business of life is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. In this paradigm-shattering classic, newly revised and expanded, John Piper reveals that the debate between duty and delight doesn't truly exist: Delight is our duty. Join him as he unveils stunning, life impacting truths you saw in the Bible but never dared to believe.

Desiring God Ministries was founded in 1994 by Pastor John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN. Desiring God exists to say that God's ultimate goal is to glorify himself. Everything they do aims to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. Learn how they accomplish that and how you can join in the mission at www.desiringgod.org.

christianaudio is truly thankful for the ministry of Desiring God and appreciative of Waterbrook-Multnomah for allowing us to offer this book. The Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group is committed to creating products that both intensify and satisfy the elemental thirst for a deeper relationship with God.

Make sure you select the Download Format and enter the coupon code NOV2009.

Related: In connection with this deal christianaudio is offering all of their John Piper titles for $4.95 each until November 21.