Don’t Waste Your Death

People from my church have known Pierre and Yolande Korkie from spending time with them in London. I had only the privilege of meeting Yolande who roomed next to me in the hostel where we stayed. I fondly remember waking to the sounds of Yolande and her South African companions singing praises to God early in the morning as their songs gently filtering through the thin wall between our rooms.

It was in those days that she shared with us her and Pierre’s intentions to move to Yemen to teach.

After they settled into their life in Yemen, their family was taken hostage by al-Qaeda militants. The children were released soon after their capture but Pierre and Yolande have been in captivity for several months now.

(Marco Longari, AFP)

We rejoiced when we heard of Yolande’s release a few days ago. However, her release was so that she could raise money to pay the ransom for Pierre. The condition is that she had 8 days to raise $3 million dollars or he would be beheaded.

According to Yolande, their captors believe that the Korkies are rich Americans. She also says aside from holding them hostage, the al-Qaeda militants have been kind to her family. I suppose that remains to be determined whether they kill Pierre or not.

(Marco Longari, AFP)

But aside from sharing this news to you, I want to make a broader point. From having met Yolande and hearing her words since her captivity, I believe her faith is as strong as ever in this dire situation. She remains, it would seem, the same woman I heard leading worship in that hostel in London. Though the threat of death looms large in her family, the promise of eternal life is far greater.

For those whose faith is in the temporary provisions of God in this fallen world, their faith would be threatened by such a situation as this. But for those whose faith is truly in Christ, their faith would be strengthened. Faith in Christ is the exchange of death for life, although it takes recognizing what death and life are.

Christ died to bear the punishment due for our sin and demonstrated the power of God over life and death by his subsequent resurrection. Faith in this necessarily entails trusting our lives to him in our death and receiving unending life in him. We may be moved to despair over events that surround the death of our broken bodies that each one of us faces.

We only have but a fleeting moment on this earth in comparison to eternity and we have a task to do while here. In carrying out that task, we must be willing to demonstrate our faith in our death if necessary. Pierre and Yolande laid down their lives for Christ long ago. Jim Elliot and his companions laid down their lives for Christ long before they landed on that beach in Huarani territory only to be killed immediately. Jim’s wife, Elisabeth, and a few others ventured into Huarani territory thereafter and were able to win many to Christ, even those who killed her husband.

Now, I’m not saying that Yolanda should return to the al-Qaeda should they kill Pierre, although it is within the realm of possibilities. God will direct her on the best course of action. But it may be that if Pierre were killed in the next few days, that God could use his death to bring many in the al-Qaeda to faith in Christ.

The death of this temporary life is rightly fearful. It is a merciful instruction in the wrath of God allowing us to understand the seriousness of the eternal death that we face without Christ. So we mourn over the loss of loved ones. Nevertheless, we who have Christ can rejoice in that while these bodies may die, we will yet live.

And so, when we give our lives to Christ in faith, we also give our lives to the task of proclaiming the good news of Christ’s work and discipling people who come to faith. Too many who are short on faith pray and work in the name of Christ as though escaping death and threatening circumstances are the signs of our faith. In reality, we are already dead in these broken bodies. Though our bodies may cease to function, can we not plan on living boldly in such a way as to make the reality of the resurrection to come the sign of our faith? Therefore, even if we die proclaiming Christ, so shall we live.

I can still hear her voice echo from those early mornings in London praising God in her room filled with faithful South Africans. May many al-Qaeda come to faith because they heard the voice of Christ from the mouths of their captives.

Don’t waste your death. Praise God even to your last breath.

No Reason to Fear What’s Truly Important

Doug Hibbard, a regular contributor on SBC Voices, discusses the possibility that the government could remove the tax-exempt status for churches in his article, A Post of Personal Paranoia. For churches who struggle to pay the bills, such a proposition is a source of fear for them. Given that many church members don’t tithe and that many contributions are in part motivated by tax deduction for donating to charitable organizations. So not only would churches have to pay taxes, but it’s reasonable to expect donations to decline. That’s the fear.

Commenter Christiane wrote this:

Our Lord left us with His Peace.
Why do we worry ?

I responded:

Christiane,
I think what you say here is at the heart of the matter, not just for our churchly organizations, but for how we feel about the things we’ve been given to steward in other areas of our lives. Part of the problem is that we shouldn’t even draw such sharp distinctions between family and church, family budget and tithe, etc. But when we center our focus on the Church, we stop being the Church. We can only be the Church when we center our focus on Christ. I think God gives us the gift of hard times so that we can remember that buildings and budgets come and go, but Jesus is ours forever.

Commenter cb scott further added:

“Buildings and budgets” and a lot of other things, I reckon.

I think you are right, Jim Pemberton. The realization that you are right about the “gifts of hard times” does not always bring me immediate comfort. However, looking back, it has been during the hardest of times that God has directed my journey in the straightest path.

It's Christmas 2012 DVD

Each year my church, Western Avenue Baptist Church, puts on a Christmas program called "It's Christmas". Until we get a professional group who can produce it with certain quality in a short period of time, I'm happy to edit an amateur video of our program. I finished the editing last night and uploaded a promo for the DVD to my YouTube account. I will eventually upload all of the program as I have done in the past (2007, 2009, 2011). The DVD will contain bonus material that I will not upload. Here is the promo:






Our program usually contains some fun pieces for the whole family to enjoy. But we tell the story of the incarnation of Christ and our need for him through music and narration. The gospel is always presented and we always end with a time of worship through music.

Preaching About Racial Diversity in Mono-Ethnic Contexts

From a recent Desiring God article:


Preaching About Racial Diversity in Mono-Ethnic Contexts from Desiring God on Vimeo.

It may be enough for some Christians to hold fast to the faith in an ethnically homogenous setting where severe persecution prevents them from getting outside of their context or extreme poverty limits their education. However, there is no excuse for not being involved in cross ethnic or cross cultural ministry when we have been tasked by Christ with fulfilling the Great Commission locally and around the world.

I have often wondered what prevents many Christians of different ethnicities from worshiping together or belonging to the same church. Perhaps the answer could be found when we consider this recent article by Russell D. Moore (HT: Jeff Spry). An excerpt

Thankfully, we don’t hear as much about “worship wars” these days, but I wonder if that’s because of growing maturity or if it’s simply because we’ve so segregated ourselves into services and congregations that reflect generational and ethnic and class-oriented musical commonalities. Maybe we need to reignite the wars, but in a Christian sort of way.

What if the war looked like this in your congregation? What if the young singles complained that the drums are too loud, that they’re distracting the senior adults? What if the elderly people complained that the church wasn’t paying attention to the new movements in songwriting or musical style?

When we seek the well-being of others in worship, it’s not just that we cringe through music we hate. As an act of love, this often causes us to appreciate, empathize, and even start to resonate with worship through musical forms we previously never considered.

This would signal a counting of others as more significant than ourselves (Phil 2:3), which comes from the Spirit of the humiliated, exalted King Jesus (Phil 2:5-11).  It would mean an outdoing of one another, in order to serve and show honor to the other parts of the Body of Christ. And, however it turned out musically, it would rock.

I think this applies to our brothers and sisters in the church the next street over who otherwise happen to believe basically the same things we do but just worship a little differently. We've segregated because we are more concerned about worshipping with a style that we can be comfortable in rather than enjoying the fullness of worshiping God through the discomfort of fellowship with brothers and sisters who we love in the Lord.