In this first picture you can see two things, one is an example of the views that surrounded us constantly.  Crazy right?  The other is our fearless leader, Mr. Terry Parks.  If you don’t know his name now, you will in Heaven cause he’s going to be really important. 

After going on a similar trip to Honduras several years ago, Terry left his job as an architect for a successful firm in northern Louisiana to lead these trips full time.  Though a father and husband he has chosen to spend his days either raising support to go on trips, organizing teams or actually out on the field.  Throughout the trip, we stood in awe of this humble servant.  At the end of the trip before we left Ventilla to head to Ocotal and on to a hotel, I jokingly suggested we cut out the free day and hit another village.  It was obviously a joke as we were all dying and suddenly Terry looks up and excitedly says, “I’m in.”  To think that God would honor Terry’s sacrifices by making him such a joyful servant, so ready to fight for the Kingdom, made us feel like small potatoes indeed.

And here’s Ventilla!  This is us at the school we stayed and showed the film.  Here you see the soccer field and the extreme version they played.  Not only did they play barefooted or in rain boots, they played dodging playground A-frames, a shed, and two or three foot rocks.  Needless to say, we held off.

Here’s a shot of some of the wildlife in the area.  I think this monster is called a Madagascar and yes those are standard size bricks.  After the picture someone killed the bug and before we knew it one of the locals had taken it away.  Apparently they eat these bugs and who can blame them?  It looks like a great source of protein.

Here’s the picture that should get you excited.  This picture best captures the blessing of being there.  In this photo, Alex (the man with the longer hair who the kids are facing) is sharing the gospel with several children and they are responding!  Who knows how much the little one’s understood or if they really were giving themselves to the Lord, but even just to see the excitement with which they listened and tried to grasp Alex’s words was a loud testimony to the grace of God. 

Lastly, I wanted to show you this shot of a cross situated at the top of a volcano that overlooks the capital city of Managua.  On the last day as we finished up our trip and began the process of flying back and re-acclimating ourselves, we praised God.  We celebrated because God is working in the backwards country of Nicaragua and He decided to use us!  God used us to continue His work of redemption in the midst of such a dark city and country.  I count myself honored to have the privilege to sacrifice my time and comfort to see His salvation come.  Here’s the final count:

El Coco - 1st night - around 300 attended with 11 (adults and kids) accepting Christ.  2nd night - over 600 attended with 12 kids accepting Christ, one lady advised she would open her home for a church plant

Ventilla - 1st night - 130 attended with 8 adults accepting Christ.  2nd day/night - 29 kids accepted Christ when Alex used the Evangi-cube, around 300 at the movie that night with no one accepting Christ

This first picture is an introduction of the team.  We had 10 Americans (Gringos to the locals) travel down to hike up into the mountains.  The two guys in the front who don’t look like their from Middle Tennessee are in fact Nicaraguan Pastors who accompanied us as guides, translators, and as spiritual leaders.  We are standing in front of First Baptist in Ocotal.  Pretty cool.

In this picture, you can see some of the locals at the first village we visited, El Coco.  We are on the Soccer/Baseball field in the village, a pretty nice one too.  They are gathered facing some of our team playing some game with the younger El Coco children.  This picture also expresses our value in a place where only one of our team members spoke Spanish.  We were a spectacle.  The curiosity that 10 Americans draw in the severely rural Nicaraguan town can be a huge tool. 

And we used that tool to draw folks to the movie.  All day we would do publicity for the Pelicula Americano (American movie) to be played at 6:30, which was about when the sun would set.  In El Coco, a big village for the area, we had 100s of folks turn up to watch the film.  Seriously.  The movies we showed were evangelistic and we showed one each of the nights we were there.  As we went to two different villages, we watched the same two movies in each village.  I wasn’t particularly excited about re-watching the movies but couldn’t complain when I found out the missionary had watched the other movie called Last Flight Out litterally over 100 times.  Probably a world record. 

At the end of the film, Alex Rodriguez, the other handsome fella in the green shirt seen in the first picture, would give an invitation and we watched all the crazy junk we had gone through, all of our discomfort and anxiety, washed away in a beautiful flow of God’s grace.  Over the course of the trip we saw 60 Nicaraguans come forward.  In El Coco, we saw 23.

This is a picture to show you a little of the Village life.  You can see two different homes in the background and this fella crusin’ the strip.  A bit of a show off really.  The villagers would have these animals, and more, just walking around everywhere.  The bulls were pretty big, but nobody seemed to scared of them so we acted tough too.

 I’ve realized that this trip is a little too big for one post.  You’ll have to tune in next week for Bueno Vista de Ventilla, the Village of Beautiful Views, the second part of our Nicaraguan adventure.

As these things often do, the second time around, after years of steady study and learning, I start to see the depth and reality of the words in these songs.  What strikes the soul more forcefully than Amazing Grace?  Where can I hide from the glaring light of Before the Throne of God Above or Rock of Ages?  When rehearsing these songs in my mind, my heart sings louder than my voice.  My soul rejoices.  My eyelids fall and my eyes of faith gaze out on majesty. 

One verse in particular, one of the verse threes that we usually skip for time, was quoted recently by a preacher named R.C. Sproul.  It’s the third verse of Joy to the World it says, “No more let sins and sorrow grow, nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found.” 

Sproul was talking about the joy, the electric, nuclear bomb, cosmic joy that comes from our wedding to Christ, how His righteousness, His clean record, His effort and perfect obedience are now ours.  We who were once cursed, the curse that was found on me, can take all the perfect identity and blessing of Jesus.  

Sproul says, “Gentleman I beg you, in this day and age, don’t ever negotiate the concept of the imputed righteousness of Christ.”  He’s speaking to pastors and warning them never to lose this foundation for joy.  He continues, “The Father looks at me and beyond the impurities and everything he sees the cloak of the righteousness of Jesus.  And now I am justified, not for today, not for this week, not till I commit another sin, but for eternity.”  “I despair of my righteousness.  I acknowledge my sin.  I put my trust in Christ and in Christ alone.  And the good news is the very instant I do that, all that He is, and all that He has…is mine.”

Rehearse in your mind these truths.  Again, go through and search them out in your mind.  Relive and worship our risen King, the curse breaker.  Far as the curse is found, we can have the obedience of Christ wrapped around and draped over us, hiding all our iniquity and allowing our sin to be forgiven.  Let your life be a hymn of praise as you let yourself gaze upon this truth.  Christ is now yours and you are now His. 

Peace and grace to you,

Ben

Paul had to encourage Timothy not to get too down when folks would push him around because he was so young.  I take comfort in that.  Just because some one’s older, it doesn’t mean scripture doesn’t still apply.  As long as I rightly divide the word of truth, everybody can feel at ease with a young guy on stage.

What’s more, the fact that I missed the 70’s might not be too bad a thing.  For evidence I present this ridiculous video from one of the era’s greats…James Brown.  If you take a fresh look at this icon, you might wish you could have grown up when I did.  I mean seriously, check out his back up dancers.  Hilarious.

watch?v=0ROzGihgCj8&feature=related

I was thinking about it  because the Bible describes Death as consuming.  Literally, we are being eaten by death, consumed by the shadow, falling down into Death.  You could think of us as falling into this giant mouth, down into Hell.  When Christ died though, something crazy happened.  Death choked. 

See when we die, it makes sense.  We deserve it.  It’s not natural, but it happens to all because we are all alike, under the curse.  When Christ came though, He lived perfectly.  He didn’t deserve death, and yet He died.  God allowed something to happen that had never happened before.  A sacrifice was made.  God himself died.  He allowed Himself to die in our place.  It was here that Death got a morsel too big.  Here Death was stymied.  We celebrate at Easter because in the death of Christ, Death died.

Praise be to God, that’s not the end of the story.  It’s not like Armageddon where Bruce Willis goes down with the asteroid or Vader kills Ben Kenobi.  (are all my illustrations movies?)  Three days later, with the apostles alone and scared, the world shaken by the death of the ruler and our the creator, two women find an empty tomb.  HE IS RISEN!!!  Death died and He did not.  Our great God found a way to take away our punishment and live.  Though He died, He also rose.  Does that not make you want to yell?  We have a way of salvation and He isn’t dead!!

Let nothing stand in the way of your celebration this weekend.  Let it charge you up and make you strong.  Let your mouth stay smiling and goose-bumps run up and down your arms like every 15 minutes.  Our Great God has made a way.  Let His people rejoice!!

Literally jumping up and down right now,

Ben

There is a theologian at Southern Seminary named Russell Moore who went through a process of adopting two orphans from Russia.  He has written extensively on this topic and I’m going to put a portion of his article which can be found at Touchstone Archives, on the blog here as it shares vividly this most excellent example of such a blessed doctrine.

No Longer Orphans

When Maria and I first walked into the orphanage, where we were led to the boys the Russian courts had picked out for us to adopt, we almost vomited, in reaction to the stench and the squalor of the place. The boys were in cribs in the dark, lying in their own waste.

Leaving them at the end of each day was painful, but leaving them the final day, before going home to wait for the paperwork to go through, was the hardest thing either of us had ever done. Walking out of the room to prepare for the plane ride home, Maria and I could hear Maxim calling out for us, and falling down in his crib, convulsing in tears. Maria shook with tears, and I turned around to walk back into their room, just for a minute.

I placed my hand on both of their heads and said, knowing they couldn’t understand a word of my English, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” I don’t think I consciously intended to cite Jesus’ words to his disciples in John 14:18; it just seemed like the only thing worth saying at the time.

When Maria and I at long last received the call that the legal process was over, and we returned to Russia to pick up our new sons, we found that their transition from orphanage to family was more difficult than we had supposed. We dressed the boys in outfits our parents had bought for them. My mother-in-law gathered some wildflowers growing between cracks in the pavement outside the orphanage.

We nodded our thanks to the orphanage personnel and walked out into the sunlight, to the terror of the two boys. They’d never seen the sun, and they’d never felt the wind. They had never heard the sound of a car door slamming or had the sensation of being carried along at 100 miles an hour down a Russian road. I noticed that they were shaking, and reaching back to the orphanage in the distance.

I whispered to Sergei, now Timothy, “That place is a pit! If only you knew what’s waiting for you: a home with a Mommy and a Daddy who love you, grandparents, and great-grandparents and cousins and playmates . . . and McDonald’s Happy Meals!” But all they knew was the orphanage. It was squalid, but they had no other reference point, and it was home.

We knew the boys had acclimated to our home, that they trusted us, when they stopped hiding food in their high-chairs. They knew there would be another meal coming, and they wouldn’t have to fight for the scraps. This was the new normal.

They are now thoroughly Americanized, perhaps too much so, able to recognize the sound of a microwave ding from forty yards away. I still remember, though, those little hands reaching for the orphanage, and I see myself there.

The Sons’ Glory

The New Testament teaching on the adoption of believers in Christ isn’t a reassuring metaphor for the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Adoption does not simply tell us we belong to God. It is a legal entitlement, one we are prone to forget.

Paul warns the congregation at Rome that sharing the spirit of Christ means that we will suffer with him (Rom. 8:17). It means that we will groan right along with the rest of the creation for the “sons of God to be revealed,” for our “adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23).

But he fits this within the context of a legal inheritance. If we are adopted by God, if we are his children, then we are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17). If we live through the “sufferings of this present time,” it is only so that we can be conformed to the image of our Christ, “in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29).

Paul identifies Jesus as the One who inherits the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. He is the One of whom it is said, “You are my Son” (Psalm 2:7), who is given “the nations as your heritage, and the ends of the earth as your possession” (Psalm 2:8).

That’s us gang!  Enjoy this magnificent grace.

Ben

And yet we live in a culture where our people, our neighbors are living like atheists.  It’s hard to find somebody who would say, “There is no God,” but how many folks really love the Savior and not just church?  How many people wake up wanting to know Him better, not just going through motions?  I’d wager not as many as we think.

Look across the yard or down the street and you’ll see many who walk out to their cars on Sunday morning, content to endure 2 hours of church, but I don’t think they really know why.  I don’t think their churchgoing is an outflow of their love for Jesus, but just what you’re supposed to do.  Why do we celebrate birthdays?  Does anyone really need a poited hat and cake with candles to celebrate moving from 42 to 43?  Can you tell me why there are streamers involved?  We just do it.  It’s the culture.  In the south, Christianity for a lot of people is just the culture.

I am not content with this husk of a faith and neither is our Father.  When you die, God doesn’t care how many hours you logged in a pew or even how many dollars you put into the plate if it isn’t an outflow of your love for Jesus.  Sacrifices like that offend God because they aren’t real.  They don’t represent a passionate love like a man loves his wife, like an artist loves his instrument, like a mother loves her child, they represent lip service to a habit.  You can set that trash on fire. 

Jesus said in Matthew 9:13, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’  For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”  In this verse Christ throws our works down.  He has come to call our attention not only to the words we speak or what we drink or how we raise our kids, but to who we love.  He called out saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.”

Do you love Him? 

Are you pursuing Him in prayer, His Word and service?

Or are you just playing a game?

I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t care.

Ben

So many times we are tempted and fall.  In the heat of the moment, when the temptation you struggle with hits and your judgement fogs, beliving the lie feels like the most natural thing in the world.   We slip back into sin and it feels like falling into bed or a bath, easy and good.

If only we could understand.  When you bring in the light, when the spell breaks, you find yourself sitting in filth, the bed full of spiders, the bath gone septic.  It is here that so many of us waste our lives.  Nassar preached on freedom because we need to remember we are free.  The curse is broken and sin is dead.

I think because of the influence of the world, because we don’t spend time like we should in scripture, investing into our relationship with God, we think sin makes sense.  Pride is just how guys hang out, lingering eyes are as normal as breathing, gossip is not but juicy conversation.  Just as sinful, it makes sense to sit out when asked to be obedient.  Small groups are hard.  Childcare is difficult.  Service is time consuming, it can’t be that big of a deal. 

Beloved let the light of scripture shine down on our sin.  When scripture shows us truth we will see that lust, pride, laziness, apathy, gossip, jealousy are the walls of a prison.  When we submit to the rules Christ has for us we drop the shackles and walk outside.  We learn to live in His economy, giving to Him and warmed by the bright light of His grace, courage in our hearts, purpose in our minds and wind at our backs.  For His glory and your good live no longer as a slave.

You are free.

Ben