PCL English Ministry

2020 PCL EM Children Winter VBS
Theme: Life is wild, God is good!

Today we celebrated Pastor John's last day serving as pastor of the English ministry, which he led for the last six years. After the service there was a special presentation, including speeches, a slideshow, presentation of flowers, and a group sing-along. And cake. There was cake!

"The Love of God Makes All Things New" (2019 8.25), based on Revelation 21:1-6:

The new Jerusalem. The city of God is not restored to its former glory under David and Solomon; it’s made new. Salvation here at the end of the book of Revelation is envisioned not as a return to the glory days but as something new. The biblical story which began with two people in a garden ends with a bustling city teeming with life, with humans in loving relationship with one another, with all that is good about human community redeemed by God.

It has been said that the church is not the building but the people who worship in the building. The same can be said of the new city. The city is not new because its streets are freshly paved or its buildings newly constructed. The city is new because the people in it have been made new. Not new and improved like a dishwashing detergent but new as in transformed. Jesus was not crucified and raised from the dead so that we could be better Christians, new and improved, able to pray more, serve more, give more, and do more QT. He was crucified and raised to make us new!

“See, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5). That is not only what God promises, that is what God has already done. God’s love makes all things new. The power of God’s love made the cross new, transforming it from a symbol of terror and death into a symbol of sacrificial love.

The power of God’s love made Peter new, resurrecting him from the death of despair at having denied his Lord. The power of God’s love transformed him from someone who feared for his life into someone who willingly gave his life for the sake of the gospel.

The power of God’s love made Paul new, transforming him from Saul, a persecutor of the Church, into Paul, the greatest evangelist of the gospel.

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"Know Hope" (2019 8.18), based on Ephesians 1:15-23:

The power of God is not the power to make good people better but the power to raise dead people to new life. God doesn’t call good people to become a little bit better by making them pray more, read the Bible more, or give more to the church. God raises the dead. God raises to new life people who were dead in sin. In doing so, God makes us heirs of all that God the Father accomplished through the death and resurrection of God the Son and makes known to us through God the Spirit....

Jesus didn’t only die for us and remain dead and buried in the tomb. He was more than a good man who died for a cause and whose memory inspires us, like some sort of war hero. He wasn’t raised from the dead just to prove to skeptics like Thomas that it was really him. He was crucified. He was raised. And he ascended. He ascended to take his place at the right hand of God, and God “has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things” (Eph. 1:22). Jesus who was crucified and raised now reigns as Lord over all…over all rule and authority, over all powers and dominions, over every name now and for all eternity.

Unlike our elected leaders, who always disappoint, Jesus really is the fulfillment of our hope. And he too is elected, although not by popular vote but by God. He is elected, i.e., chosen by God to rule as Lord. Jesus is Lord. Lord of all. Lord of all your pain and suffering. Lord of your depression and loneliness. Lord of your bitterness at having been mistreated. Lord of your sickness. Lord of your financial insecurity. Lord of your broken relationships. Lord of your addictions.

Jesus Christ is Lord. That is the good news. That is the source of our hope, the hope in which we are called to live right this very moment. Hope does not wait for the future. The hope that we have in Jesus Christ is a present reality because Jesus is Lord today, tomorrow, and always. Know hope. Know the hope to which Jesus has called you.

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"Written in the Stars (Faith)," based on Genesis 15:1-6:

As God did with Abraham, so in Jesus Christ God used one man—his own Son—to bless all the nations of the earth, for on the cross all have been reconciled through his grace. And all those nations—from north to south and east to west, from the new world of America to an ancient civilization like Korea—are composed of descendants of Abraham.

In a way, we too are the fulfillment of the promise that God wrote in the heavens for Abraham long ago. We here in this room are a small handful of the countless stars that filled the night sky when God said to Abraham, “Look toward heaven and count the stars…So shall your descendants be” (Gen. 15:5).

Descendants of Abraham, know that the light of faith within you—the light of Jesus Christ—shines brightly. It shines even in the midst of doubt, even in times when all you feel is God’s absence. It shines because God kept his promise to Abraham, and that promise now continues in you. It shines as bright as the stars of the Milky Way in the darkness of the desert night.

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"Foolish Wisdom" (2019 7.28), based on Proverbs 26:4-5:

The Bible is comfortable with contradiction because contradiction is at the heart of the Gospel. After all, what is the gospel of Jesus Christ if not foolish wisdom? Think of the words of Jesus. Blessed are the poor (Lk. 6:20). Those who lose their life for his sake will find it (Mt. 16:25). Whoever wishes to be great must be a servant (Mt. 20:26). Whoever wants to be first must be last of all, and a servant of all (Mk. 9:35).

Think of the words of Paul, who boasted in his weakness, for it was a sign of the power of Christ (2 Cor. 12:9). Think of Paul who said that God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength (1 Cor. 1:25). Paul writes of “the foolishness of our proclamation” (1 Cor. 1:21). He is talking about the gospel, the “good news” of a crucified king, a suffering savior, which is foolishness to Gentiles and a stumbling block to Jews.

The gospel is foolish wisdom for a world too wise for its own good, a world that thinks it is too smart, too wealthy, and too independent for such a foolish proclamation.

So, then, what should we do? Should we defend the Bible from those who see in it contradictions and therefore disregard it? No, God doesn’t need us to defend the Bible. Contradiction is in the very nature of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ is, indeed, foolish wisdom. And so, God doesn’t need our defense, but what God wants is Christians willing to make fools of themselves for the sake of Jesus Christ.

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"Measure for Measure" (2019 7.21), based on Amos 7:7-17:

God loves us enough to tell us the truth about ourselves. We do come up short. We don’t measure up. Our love of neighbor—inside and outside the church—is a poor reflection of what it should be because we are so hung up on ourselves. Our insecurities and egos, our fears and jealousies, whisper in our ear. Did I receive enough praise today? Do people like her more than they like me? Did he just disrespect me? Did I receive my fair share?

In a way, we are fortunate. God tells us the truth about ourselves not in the words of a prophet but in the wounds of Jesus Christ on the cross. The cross is our plumb line. The cross reveals that we are crooked. We are not straight. We are not upright. The cross declares to us that we are sinners. We too have turned inward at the expense of our neighbor. Like Israel, we stand condemned for our sin, but—and this is significant—Jesus Christ stands in our place.

Just as Israel was elected in love but rejected and sent into exile, so Jesus, the Son of God, was elected by God to suffer rejection. Jesus is at the same time elected and rejected. Just as Israel was God’s chosen people, Jesus was God’s chosen Son. On the mountain where Jesus’ appearance was transfigured before Peter, James, and John, the voice of the Lord announced, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” (Lk. 9:35).

Jesus was chosen not to rule an earthly kingdom nor to receive earthly glory. He was chosen to suffer rejection. He was rejected not as a sinner but for the sake of sinners. What Jesus experienced as judgment, we experience as grace. It’s measure for measure. The measure of grace that we have received through the Son is equal to the measure of our sin that was nailed to the cross.

Know what that means. It means that we are free. We are free from the law. We are free from judgment. We are free from the need to turn inward in fear, anxiety, and insecurity, obsessing over whether we have enough or have done enough. God is not hanging a plumb line next to our lives to see whether we measure up. He has instead extended to us the full measure of his grace.

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"How Great Is Our Good?" (2019 7.07), based on 2 Kings 5:1-14:

Now, let’s remember what enabled both of these miracles to happen. It wasn’t the authority of the king of Israel or the power of the prophet of Israel. It wasn’t any special healing power of the waters of the Jordan River. It was the words of an Israelite slave girl…words of kindness and compassion that she offered for the man who owned her. This young slave girl with no power of her own was the means through which God’s power would be made known to her master. This young slave girl with no voice of her own would be the instrument through which the word of God would proclaim grace and healing over the commander of the armies of Aram.

As surely as Jesus multiplied five loaves and two fish into a feast to feed thousands, so God multiplied this one small act of goodness on the part of a slave girl and transformed it into something great. That’s what God does. God uses our acts of goodness, however small, to reveal his greatness. Our small acts of kindness and compassion are like pebbles thrown into a pond. The pebble is small, but it creates ripples that emanate in waves across the surface of the water.

There is so much bad news out in the world that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by it all. It’s all too easy to give in to despair and to feel that we are powerless. But you are not powerless. You are not voiceless. You are an instrument through which the power of God is to be revealed. You are a voice through which the word of God is to be proclaimed. No matter your circumstances! If God can speak and work through an Israelite slave girl, God can speak and work through the small good that we work in our little corner of the world. How great is our good? As great as the God who uses it to his own glory.

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"The Daily Convert" (2019 6.30), based on Acts 9:1-20:

But no less wondrous is the conversion of Ananias. That matters because most of us are more Ananias than Paul. We were not thrown to the ground by a light from heaven. We were raised in the light of faith. We speak the language. We know the rituals. And yet, we too are on the road to Damascus. This is the road that we are all on, the road on which we continue to encounter Jesus Christ in surprising ways. In the midst of the familiar sights and sounds of the life of faith, God is at work in ways that shock and challenge the faithful. God doesn’t hand the church a rule book and say “Good luck.” God is alive, and God is involved in our lives....

The Holy Spirit is not finished with us. The Spirit is continually at work in the life of the church and in the lives of individual believers. Our conversion is not a moment in time but the daily journey of traveling the Damascus road. The Spirit works in us today and every day, converting us into the image of Jesus Christ, calling us to see the face of Jesus Christ in the poor, the stranger, the outcast, and even the enemy, to hear the voice of Jesus Christ in the asylum seeker, and to speak the words of Jesus Christ to those who live in fear or without hope. We are daily converts to the light, and life, and love of Jesus Christ.

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BBC Radio broadcast on Christianity and North Korea

Heart and Soul - Christians praying for one Korea - BBC Sounds Smuggling the bible across the Korean border