Pastor Jay //

We took a day trip into DC today from Richmond before heading home. What an amazing city. The population of the city is 600,000 and that many more people come there to work each day. We saw all the great sights: Washington Monument, Capitol, White House [didn't get to see W], Arlington Cemetery, Smithsonian Museum (one of 17). It was a good day but terribly long. We caught a train at 6:00 am and rode 2 hours to the Capitol and returned this evening.

I think my favorite part was the Lincoln memorial. In his second inagural speach that is imprinted on the wall, his speech says, in part:

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’ If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

Michele and I are at a missions mobilization conference in Richmond Virginia. This is the place where they train the missionaries before they go on the field. We are here to learn how to get Missouri Churches more involved in missions. You can see the positive effect it has had on our church to get involved. “Why?” you ask? Because missions glorifies God. The heart of God is that all peoples of the world may know Him (Genesis 12:3). If we are interested in the heart of God, we will be interested in missions. Missions isn’t the whole work of the church, but it should be a significant part of the church.

Off to get some sleep and hit it again tomorrow. Check out the Acts 1:8 Challenge.

I promised the church this morning that I would listen to my friend’s sermon and then let them know what the last -good thing- in hell was. Here it is - it is

good prayers

(and) good intentions - Toby did not have good relatives in his list. I admit, I think I like his list better, but that just proves that preaching gets better with age.

To bring the rest of you in on the story… I preached a sermon entitled 6 Good Things in Hell from Luke 16:19-31. I got the idea from a friend at school that works for the North American Mission Board. However, he had seven things in his list. I told the church that I would listen to his sermon from when he preached at Champion Forest in Houston in May (listen here) and see what the last good thing was. We didn’t exactly have the same list, but I got pretty close. It was a good passage and hopefully a challenging sermon.

Have a great day.

Pastor Jay