The Book of Colossians

My church is going through a transition next week by moving to three services instead of two. Furthermore, we are starting a new series by going through the book of Colossians, which I'm extremely excited about. I'm always excited about anything the Apostle Paul writes. This got me thinking. I actually don't have a lot of commentaries on the book of Colossians. Maybe it's time I get a couple of more. Maybe even dust off some of my New Testament Greek study tools. In any case, it's going to be a wonderful time in God's word and I have high hopes for this up-and-coming series. So much so that I already listened to a sermon by John Piper in the first few verses.

The title of the sermon is The Fruit of Hope: Love. Here are some excerpts:

The question we are asking in the month of July is: What is the fruit of Christian hope?

Last week we answered that the fruit of hope is joy, because in Romans 12:12 Paul commands Christians to "rejoice in hope." In other words, God never commands a Christian to be happy if there is nothing to look forward to. But the gospel is the good news that there is always something to look forward to—something so good that any suffering that may be required of us will seem light and momentary by comparison (2 Corinthians 4:17). And since there is always a secure and happy future laid up for the Christian, the command remains in force: Rejoice always, and again I say, Rejoice!

Does Christian Hope Produce Love or Escapism?

You could read or listen to the rest of it here: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/the-fruit-of-hope-love#/listen/full

Today's message . . . It teaches and shows that a strong confidence in the promises of God and a passionate preference for the joy of heaven over the joy of the world frees a person from worldly self-centeredness, from paralyzing regret and self-pity, from fear and greed and bitterness and despair and laziness and impatience and envy. And in the place of all these sins, hope bears the fruit of love.

I pray that through hearing the word of God, sitting under its' authority, and fellowship with the saints, the Holy Spirit would transform me into a more heavenly-minded person and less into the worldly-minded person I am. I believe this to be God's will and may my love for the things of God and God Himself grow as I am confident that He will answer this prayer.

The Descent Into Airport Hell

We decided to go with United Airlines on my return trip to the Motherland. I never had to book a flight to Thailand even though I’ve been there a million times. It was always my mother or Tim Dinkins that took that job. I just remember going to the international terminal at LAX every time. So it was an absolute surprise to me when we got dropped off at the international terminal to find out that our flight on United wasn’t leaving from there. Guess what? They still fly international flights out of their own terminal, which was three terminals down. Did our ride already leave? Of course. Did we have to walk all that way through crazy LAX carrying all our luggage? Of course. Was I happy? Of course not. Not a great start to our trip.

When we finally got to the correct terminal we had to go through security like everyone does. All the TSA agents had the “I hate the world and everything in it” look on their faces and were being complete jerks to most people. There was this elderly Asian lady ahead of me in the security line who did know English very well and wasn’t sure whether or not to zip or unzip her luggage while putting it through the scanning machine, so she decided to unzip it. Apparently, you’re only suppose to unzip things that have liquids. By the time she got up to the scanning machine a TSA agent was upset and angrily zipped up her luggage and shoved it through the scanning machine. She was flustered as a result, feeling as if she did something wrong. This could’ve been her first time at LAX, or at any airport for that matter. She clearly didn’t understand English very well, but instead of being patient and gracious in situations like that, I find that often people get angry that they don’t know English and assume that it’s stupidity. I felt like saying to the TSA agent, “Hey jackass, why do you think the rest of the world hates us? Because of jackasses like you! That’s exactly why we need this kind of security.” Then I thought about being thrown into a small room and having my anal cavity checked out and decided to refrain.

I pushed my bag through and something in my bag was unsettling to them so they pulled me aside to open it and check it out. It turned out to be my lotion. A TSA agent grabbed it and started looking at it like it was potentially C4. I calmly told him, “It’s lotion. You know, the stuff that prevents dry skin.” He replied, “It’s too big, you’ll have to check your luggage to keep it or you could leave it here.” With complete apathy I replied, “I’m not checking my bag, so Merry Christmas.”

It blows my mind. TSA agents are already viewed as the “bad guys” at the airports but they’re really looking out for our safety. They know this, so why be jackasses about it? Why have the attitude that says, “I know my job is your safety but I hate you anyway.” Don’t they realize that the terrorists have already won? Maybe they just embraced the villain role like the Miami Heat (we all know how that worked out). But terrorists don’t honestly think they’re going to take over the world. They’re not even trying. All they want is to have us live in fear and change our way of life. Or in this case, make TSA agents into the biggest A-holes in the world and have airport travel sucked into the tenth level of hell. So when we treat each other like jerks, it’s a victory for the terrorists. I say, “Screw that!” and let’s actually treat people with patience and dignity and in so doing we’re saying, “Screw you!” to the terrorists.

About 12 hours later we landed in Tokyo. If you don’t know already, even though you get off an airplane to get to a connecting flight you still have to go through security check again. Once we got to the scanning machine I began to basically undress myself when the Tokyo TSA agent kindly stopped me half way and simply asked me to walk through the metal detector. I said, “You mean you don’t want me to undress in front of everyone so you could humiliate me all in the name of ‘safety’?” With a kind smile he said, “no.” Sweet! Score one for Tokyo airport. But then when my wife and I were trying to find something to eat, and all they had was Japanese food and McDonald’s. Really? In such an international airport that’s all you have? I’m taking that point back.

About 8.5 hours later we finally arrived in Bangkok. I’ve never been to the new airport so this was a new experience for me. And you know what? It’s absolutely beautiful. Especially when you compare it to the old dump they used to have. They had every store you could think of including about twenty-five coffee shops. The layout was nice and the vegetation was even nicer. Score one for the Thai people!

You’re probably thinking, “Are you seriously talking about the airports when you went to Thailand?” I can assure you that this is only a warm-up for the things to come. When you read the blogs on the actually trip you’ll see why. There are about a zillion things I need to process- my mom, my dad, my own nationality, the rest of my family, other family history, the influence of Christianity in Thailand, where can I get some of my favorite Thai desserts, Etc. I promise it’ll be worth the wait. Until then, remember to tell the terrorist “Screw you!” by loving someone today, especially if you are at an airport.

Prayer Progress Report

As I mentioned at the beginning of summer, I made a goal to have a better prayer life, which usually means praying more. So how’s it going? I’m glad you asked. A couple of weeks ago our church elders challenged the congregation to fast before our Sunday evening communion service at church. The reason for the fast was to pray about being more prayerful. What? Pray about praying? It’s so simple it’s profound! Anyway, unfortunately I couldn’t partake in the church-wide fast because I had to attend my buddy’s wedding. Desiring to still participate, I decided to fast during the week leading up to that weekend. (I wasn’t going to fast during a wedding when Jesus Himself said that it wasn’t an appropriate time to fast. Wedding Time equals Party Time.)

An interesting experience happened during the week long fast (lunch only). The hunger pains were there but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. In fact, the hunger pains were a constant reminder of why I was fasting to begin with, namely, improving my prayer life and in so doing improving my relationship with God. Also, I tried to let the hunger pains remind me of God’s presence as well. This way, I didn’t really feel the need to quickly break my fast because I wanted that constant reminder to keep me from acting like a fool.

This experience stirred my interest on the subject of fasting, and I decided to reread John Piper’s book, “A Hunger For God” in order to have a better theological understanding of the topic. I won’t break down every component of the book here but just point out some things that helped me understand fasting a bit better and gave me a continued desire to add fasting as a spiritual discipline. Regarding fasting, Piper says, “The true mortification of our carnal nature is not a simple matter of denial and discipline. It is an internal, spiritual matter of finding more contentment in Christ than in food” (33). Piper goes on to say that it isn’t really about “not eating” either, because food is a gift from God. It’s about saying to the giver that, “You are more satisfying than the gift itself.” So then, fasting doesn’t always need to be about food (or a lack thereof) but simply denying yourself of good things for the ultimate Good Thing, God Himself.

Fasting isn’t often mentioned as a spiritual discipline today because it’s often associated with the mourning and sadness of the Old Testament. Although maybe true, Piper says, “The new fasting, the Christian fasting, is a hunger for all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19), aroused by the aroma of Jesus’ love and by the taste of God’s goodness in the gospel of Christ (1 Peter 2:2-3)” (42). Fasting could include not watching TV, working out less, or abstaining from anything that you usually fill your time with to focus primarily on the Lord. Ultimately, “the new fasting is the fasting of faith . . . [and] faith is a spiritual feasting on Christ with a view to being so satisfied in him that the power of all other allurements is broken.”

I appreciate that Piper brought out the point about “faith” in fasting. Being a complete glutton myself, it took faith to move forward in my spiritual life in the area of fasting. It’s been an amazing experience that I hope more Christians will share. Truly believing that the power of Christ can break “all other allurements” is indeed satisfying.