Happy Tears at Church and the "M" Word

Hello Everyone,

We hope and pray that He has blessed you today.

I made it to Tokyo Baptist today and I am so glad that I did.

It turns out that all of the services today were conducted by TBC's youth ministry - the sermons, music, offering, etc... and they did such an excellent job! I left truly inspired by their energy and passion for Christ.

Pastor Chris, TBC's Youth Ministry Pastor, gave a wonderful and timely sermon today about the certainty of our salvation, the omnipresence of God, Jesus and the holy spirit and how we simply holds ourselves back. His message, entitled the "Tupperware Sermon" basically explained how completely transformative our acceptance of Christ's salvation is. Using tupperware of various sizes (one inside the other), he made the point that by our nature and our surroundings, Sin is both inside us and surrounds us. By accepting Christ as our personal savior, we are fundamentally changed - not in terms of our hair or habits or idiosyncracies but fundamentally.

The two most powerful points for me were the following:

1) With Christ within us and us in him, we are Holy now even if our flesh is imperfect. We must reject Satan's constant and insidious whispers into our ears that 100% of our sins have not been forgiven, that the deal is irrevocably sealed and that His glory is always trying to shine through us if we simply let him. Like the perfect father with perfect love, patience and wisdom, he never leaves us and bends over backward to help us find His way again every time we get lost.

So what? To me and oddly enough this was sort of a call to arms and made more real the notion that each of us is a Holy man or woman, not just the pastors, and that each is a temple of God not for us to do as we please. Doesn't this change everything? If we are Holy and are temples now, how could I consider or tolerate or consider, some of the things that I do? Satan's ability to introduce self doubt about the certainty of His presence can so often cause us to "let things slide."

2) While I'm not sure if this was meant to be a point of the sermon, the whole tupperware metaphor reminded me that God undeniably created in us a void that simply has to be filled with something - if not the true God then other gods like money, hate, lust, etc... The point again is that the human spirit yearns for Christ to fill that void, almost like a round peg for a round hole. When we try and deny this, we still try and fill it but with other pegs that just don't fit right.

Today's service was really special because of all of kids. They did a fantastic job praising the Lord and I was so moved. Unfortunately, everytime I focused on a boy or girl, I could only dream that someday Isaac and Rachel could be up there shouting and singing for joy. The truth is that our little miracles are already causing people to shout for joy and that whether on earth or in heaven, Isaac and Rachel will continue to bring glory to Him. While the service was a tearful one for me and while I had my moments of possessiveness and weakness, in the end, I found myself crying and smiling at the same time.

While I wasn't able to give Pastor Dennis a hug, I did get a chance to speak and do so with Judi, Pastors Takeshi, Joel, and Ted and Judy Oman (at Monsoon!). Pastor Dennis and his team are such a special group of believers and have been such a great blessing to us, we thank Him daily for them and TBC. Please continue to pray for them and TBC as we try to rise to God's great vision for Japan as his latest triumph.

Finally, as Sonia mentioned in her blog, our Dr. Sakamoto used the "M" word yesterday. For a moment, Sonia and I were speechless. Please continue to pray for God to guide his hands and judgement as we travel down this uncharted course together.

Thank you Jesus from the bottom of our hearts and thank you for your prayers.

In Him,

Jong