Sunday, June 10, 2007

Sundays Sermon

Church was good today! I went to New Life City Church, here in Kampala, Uganda, East Africa, and was able to hear the pastor from Maranatha Bible Church in San Antonio, Texas, Reverend Dr. Rander Draper. Who woulda thunk? =) I came all the way to Africa just to hear a native San Antonion preach. Since the sermon was quite good, I thought I would share some of my favourite parts.

In response to cell phones and self glorification Dr. Draper stated it well… “Have we become so important that we come to church waiting for a call from man, instead of listening to God?” Even in Africa, we have to remind people to turn their cell phones off; this is not just an American problem.

“You cannot keep stuff forever; you won’t see a U-HAUL behind the hearse.”

“My pleasure is NOT God’s priority, nor should it be mine.” This does not mean that God does not want us to enjoy and be fulfilled; rather our priorities should be that of Christ…Kingdom priorities.

“When you are serious about Jesus Christ you are serious about that which is valuable to the Lord.”

“Do you keep ready? Ready or not, here God comes!”

“We should not look like we’ve been baptized in lemon juice! We need to have the ministry of face!”

Luke 12:20—“But God said to him, ‘You fool!...’” In response to this piece of scripture Dr. Draper said, “Now when God calls you a fool, you must be a fool!” =)

“I have eternal security, that’s why I’m secure. God gave me something to keep…eternal life!”

So there you have it, those are my favourite quotes from today’s sermon.

My revelation for the day…worrying about my job in the fall is not glorifying to God, my time here is, and I should not encapsulate it with worry. I woke up at a minimum 15 times with multiple different dreams of utter worry. Please pray for good sleep. This morning I did wake up and go for an 8K jog, which was nice and well needed.

At church I saw Lewis, a good friend of my brothers. Fancy seeing an FPC’n (First Presbyterian Church) at Gerald’s church in Uganda. Lewis left two weeks ago to minister with EMI as an architect. The other people from FPC, on my team at Rafiki, were also there—Naomi, Abigail, and Virginia. The rest of the FPC team working with Food for the Hungry are in Northern Uganda and have a very different ministry. Half of the Rafiki people attend church at Gerald’s church, the other half at another church. We were invited to attend New Life Christian, thus we went. Gerald spoke at FPC for the global mission’s weekend—he is excellent.