Recapping the Short-Term Missions Blog Series (by Abraham Piper)

Posted: 29 May 2009 11:19 PM PDT (Author: Abraham Piper) We thought it might be helpful to collect all the posts from this week's short-term missions blog series in one place: Rethinking Short-Term Missions The Effect of Short-Term Missions on Poverty We Need Them at Least as Much as They Need Us Teaching as a Short-Term Missions Strategy The Importance of Doing Missions as Servants We received a lot of good feedback from readers including this: I've seen some disturbing trends form…. Volunteers are now dictating to the field what they will and won't be doing on their trip instead of being instructed by the field as to what is needed. We missionaries have allowed this…usually under pressure from sending or supporting agencies for an increase in volunteer activity. The short-term mission trip has become sort of a spiritual merit badge that churches collect…I've actually had leaders, on several occasions, tell me my projects weren't exciting or flashy enough. On the flip side, the teams that come willing to do whatever and are ready to share their faith blow my socks off in the way they glorify Christ during the span of 5 or 6 days. I pray that we can put the short-term mission trip back into the proper perspective because they can be such wonderful tools for advancing the Kingdom. I hope a lot of leaders will…be challenged and energized to make their short-term mission trip everything it can be for Christ and the sake of the gospel.

Remarkable Spurgeon Sermons to be continued

Spurgeon quotes have ceased all of a sudden (last week). This will be remedied as soon as this weekend is over. I've finished reading the first sermon, "Supposing Him to be the gardener" and found it good. Have several more passages I want you to read. The best thing of course is just to read the whole sermon. You can find it on the previous Spurgeon posts of my blog.

Please Pray for Me as I Prepare the Sermon This Sunday

I've been assigned 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12 as sermon text for Sunday 22nd of February. I remember reading the passage a few months ago, as we were dividing up the letter into six passages. As I read, I knew who should preach that text. I found it rich, wonderful and so full of questions that needed answers.

I was hoping my father would be assigned the few first verses of chapter four. Instead, here I am preparing to preach on a topic I'm hesitant to speak on, sanctification/holiness.

Please pray for me. Ask God to give me humility, wisdom and strength to preach to glorify God. Pray also that I would have much love for the flock of Feignies (the church I attend). Thank you.

Supposing Him to be the Gardener (#3)

Continued from my reading. A quote from a sermon by Charles Spurgeon.

"Supposing him to be the gardener," there is another duty, and that is, let each one of us yield himself up entirely to him. A plant does not know how it ought to be treated; it knows not when it should be watered or when it should be kept dry: a fruit-tree is no judge of when it needs to be pruned, or digged, or dunged. The wit and wisdom of the garden lieth not in the flowers and shrubs, but in the gardener. Now, then, if you and I are here to-day with any self-will and carnal judgment about us, let us seek to lay it all aside that we may be absolutely at our Lord's disposal. […] 
Depend upon it, happiness lives next door to the spirit of complete acquiescence in the will of God, and it will be easy to exercise that perfect acquiescence when we suppose the Lord Jesus to be the gardener. If the Lord hath done it; what has a saint to say? Oh thou afflicted one, the Lord hath done it: wouldest thou have it otherwise? Nay, art thou not thankful that it is even so, because so is the will of him in whose hand thy life is, and whose are all thy ways? The duty of submission is very plain, "supposing him to be the gardener."

Page 18, Supposing Him to be the Gardener ( Sermon #1699 )

Supposing Him to be the Gardener (#1)

Supposing Him to be the Gardener (#2)

Supposing Him to be the Gardener (#2)

"Supposing him to be the gardener."

John 20:15

“Let your imaginations run along with mine while I say that "supposing him to be the gardener" should be A SPUR TO MANY DUTIES.
One of the duties of a Christian is joy. That is a blessed religion which among its precepts commands men to be happy. When joy becomes a duty, who would wish to neglect it?”

Page 17, Supposing Him to be the Gardener ( Sermon #1699 )

Supposing Him to be the Gardener (#1)

50 Remarkable Spurgeon Sermons (#1)

I've found this first sermon to be most helpful (and beautiful). So here are a few excerpts from it. Remember to read it out-loud, it is the best way to understand the richness of the text.

"Supposing him to be the gardener."
John 20:15

“The wonder is that ever you and I should have been placed among the plants of the Lord. Why are we allowed to grow in the garden of his grace? Why me Lord? Why me? How is it that we have been kept there and borne with in our barrenness, when he might long ago have said, "Cut it down: why cumbereth it the ground?"[…]
I know not how it is that we have been spared, except upon this ground—"supposing him to be the gardener"; for Jesus is all gentleness and grace, so slow with his knife, so tardy with his axe, so hopeful if we do but show a bud or two, or, perchance, yield a little sour berry—so hopeful, I say, that these may be hopeful prognostics of something better by-and-by. Infinite patience! Immeasurable longsuffering! where are ye to be found save in the breast of the Well-beloved? Surely the hoe has spared many of us simply and only because he who is meek and lowly in heart is the gardener.”
Page 16, Supposing Him to be the Gardener ( Sermon #1699 )

Great Spurgeon Quotes Later Today!

Having read the first Remarkable Spurgeon sermon, I just can't keep it for myself. I'll be posting the best quotes without commenting on them. If you think I should comment, I can... 

Remember to read them out loud. Spurgeon MUST be read out loud to get the beauty (and often the meaning!).

First quote: later today. As I've said before, have a great weekend and please be praying for me. Thanks!

What is a church?

If I were to ask you, what is a church? You would probably have something in mind that resembles a bit the photo. If I were to ask a passerby here in France that same question, he would certainly agree.

We're a nation with a Catholic heritage. So that photo is exactly what we understand as being a church. Its a big building, where the windows depict stories. The building isn't heated and the benches we sit on are uncommonly uncomfortable (they must do it on purpose), so

much that it comes as a relief when we stand up for part of the liturgy.
There is a priest who does his rounds. But for lack of priests and of
funds, the mass in villages is often held midweek, so that the priest
can hold mass on Sunday in a 'bigger' church. That is a church in the
minds of my people.

In my mind as well, there is often this notion that the church is a
building and something that we do on Sunday morning. God gently
reminded me of the truth during the month of August as I rediscovered
His church.

Why Did God Create Old-Age? (Part 3)

On what you can do when you are old and bed-ridden.

I think there is in each of us a fear of aging. We've all seen a loved one grow old, lose mental capacities or physical abilities. We've seen what's left of them as sickness and age makes a mess of their bodies. We know it to be an inevitable part of life and yet, we dread the day we'll have to fight the demon of age ourself.

For the active people out there, being bed-ridden is perhaps the most horrible thing you can imagine. Firstly because you love being up and about. Secondly, because "who then will continue on with the Lord's ministry?" Both my French grandparents are active Christians. They love Jesus and therefore have always been actively looking for ways to reach the lost and to bring hope to the hopeless. However, the drawback to this lovely mindset is that there is a dichotomy that is set up between the secular and the holy that is unbiblical. You cannot uphold that 'ministry' is more important than loving your wife and family (seeing that marriage is high in God's affections and that it is a man's responsibility before God to be a good father and husband). How can preaching be more ministry-like than putting your kids to bed? All things can and should be done to the glory of God.

So what are we to do when bed-ridden and old-age ravishing our body?

• Meditate on God (Psalm 63v6 & Psalm 4v4), considering His goodness.

• Tell the next generation about Jesus Christ (Psalm 71v18).

• Pray to God without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5v17). My grandmother is a remarkable example in this. I'm sometimes led to think that God has kept her alive because he loves to hear her pray with passion, like a 75-year old child of God.

• Rejoice always (1 Thessalonians 5v16) so that the world would know that you have a greater hope yet to come in heaven.

• Be a listening ear to those who come to find advice. Speak little, pray for wisdom and give great-God answers (Proverbs speaks of this everywhere).

Those were a few of the ideas that came to mind.

Photo: Doulos

Why did God Create Old-Age? (Part 2)

Counting your blessings is something we should all do. It is healthy,
normal (we're so blessed) and it glorifies God greatly as He is the
provider of all good thing.

I was taught a good lesson as I visited Mamie, my grandmother, at the
hospital. She loves reading the Bible, praying and talking, three
things I also enjoy doing. So that is what we were doing. As visiting
hours were coming to a close, we prayed with each other. Mamie, 75
years old, having known serious illness for most of my existence, was
praising God in prayer for His many blessings that know no end.
She meant it, I really believe she did. She thanked God for so many
things always returning to the greatest thing of them all: Grace in
the death of Jesus. Oh how my grandma prays! I was amazed that
despite all the pain, intense and nearly constant, she could praise
her God for all his goodness.

Why did God create old-age? Well, I don't know, but if in it, we're
able to take sickness, pain and handicap well, I think that it is a
glorifying thing. Is old-age a means for God to finish killing the
pride in our own hearts? What is it of old people that God likes?
That we recognize ourselves so dependant on Him? That we tend to
become childlike again? I don't know, but I want to learn now how to
count my blessings, so that even then, when all seems dark and pain
is so excruciatingly clear, I would praise God for Jesus. Oh let us
prepare ourselves to age well!

Photo by Dodo Egger