The Lord's Day in Paraiso

Roca Viva is in Paraiso (par ah EE so), a small town lined with homes and business that are just a few feet from the road and nearly on top of each other and with gated front courtyards. Roca Viva has a rollup garage door that open up to a ceramic tiled sitting area with a couch and couple of chairs. You then enter through a glass entry door (similar to the one we enter into at Berean) and find yourself in a that is not quite as big as the old sanctuary. The back corner isn't available for seating as there are two bathrooms that take up that space. In the corner opposite the bathrooms you find the pulpit, small projector & screen, and about as five or six foot wooden cross with spikes nailed into the place where the Savior's hands and feet would have been. So, if you can picture it...when you share from the pulpit you have to pan your eyes left and right as there are two distinct sitting areas due to the layout of the room. We were greeted warmly by the Ticos. Lots of handshakes, hugs and fake cheek kisses (that's what I call them).

The church filled up so that we stood in the back as The service began with Cam doing the opening along with a song. Then an older saint, Esther (reminded me so much of Alice Oke), praised God for his abundant blessings. Next up was Elias to share an emotional testimony of how his father always pointed him to Jesus...until one day he turned away from his sins and did just that. He took us through his journey of acting like a believer for a while, his tumultuous relationship with Shanna, his "plan" to fix his problems by going to church with her, and God's mercy in bringing him to into relationship with the Savior. It was a beautiful story told in an endearing and emotional way.

After some more singing, it was Joshua's turn to share his testimony. Now Joshua is a quiet, reserved man (or so I thought). He shared this globetrotting adventure of running after worldly success, taking him to the sands of Dubei "for the money." God had different plans. Joshua was ushered to the States and into relationship with his Redeemer. I wish you all could have seen this soft-spoken guy turn into a Spirit-filled preacher as he shared what God had done in his life, transforming him into a useful vessel. At one point during his testimony, the glass entry door that I mentioned above fell off of its hinge. Thankfully Dennis caught it as it would have injured a child walking through the entryway at the time. I later told Joshua I thought that the door blew off by the power of the Spirit that was working through him during his testimony.

I followed Joshua, which was a tough act to follow. I said as much to the congregation: "I thought I was supposed to preach this morning?!" What happened next was one of the most powerful events in my life. I had prepared to preach Ephesians 4:1-16. I love to preach. I love the study of the Word of God that precedes the preaching, engaging with the text, struggling with it to find the flow of the argument, figuring out how it fits in its context, searching for how the gospel is the interpretive key, etc. What has been a struggle for me, however, is that I am invariably too tied to my notes. I manuscript my sermons and then am afraid to leave the manuscript. Well, as I said, I had pages and pages of notes on these 16 verses. The Holy Spirit had a different idea. I began to preach and felt a freedom in preaching that I had never experienced up to that point. I never got beyond the first few verses. God moved me to expound upon humility, gentleness, patience, and burden bearing by defining these beautiful character qualities and pointing to Jesus Christ and how he super-abudantly displayed them...and that our holy living can only occur by trusting, believing and being changed by how he had already lived these traits out perfectly. For example, how could I treat others as different less than myself when Jesus left the glories of heaven and humiliated himself, lowering himself to be as one of his creatures so that he might be murdered...all so that he could buy back a worthless, sin-ridden enemy like me? I felt used of God to lift up Jesus so that all men might be drawn to him that morning. And let me be clear, none of the good that came from that sermon was from me. But it was so encouraging that I was able to use God's gift to me in a way I had never done before. It confirmed in me my desire to preach. Jeff Cady was such an encouragement to me afterwards as he got right up in my face and said, "You've been given the gift of passion. Use it wisely."

Later that day, I preached the same text to the start-up church which meets at the camp. Dennis Brose preceded me by sharing his salvation testimony again with an evangelistic emphasis. I love this guy and what was God was clearly doing in his life during the trip. Pray for this young church. I'm not sure how sustainable it is as it is made up of mostly teenagers. There appears to also be a need of discipleship and unity among the leadership of the church.

Pray that we made an eternal impact in Costa Rica.

In Christ,

Jeff