Reformed, Book Reading, Apple Loving, Beverage Snob, 23 Year-Old Husband, In Need of Grace.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
People don’t fall in love with God because you’re “awesome.” Are you with me? People don’t go “I want to love Jesus more because bill is awesome.” Thats not how it works. Its ” I AM IN NEED! And Christ is sufficient for whatever need that is.” That is what draws people to the heart of God.
Matt Chandler, Colossians Pt. 20
I was going to post this as a standard quote, but I’ve realized that quotes from Chandler aren’t the same when you read them. You have to hear them to really appreciate them. Enjoy.
Here is the Gospel, this is as simple as I can make it for you. None of your righteous acts give you rights standing before God. None of them. So for all of the exhausting religiosity you buy in to, the “if I behave this way, God loves me, but if I behave this way I’ve got to stay away from God, as if there is a place to hide from Him. So I can fix myself up, only to come back and make him see that I am good enough and worthy for His affection.” There is this impossible lie in us, chewing at us constantly to earn what has already been payed for. That is why Paul is going to come back to the cross, over and over and over and over again. That the gospel is not only for those who are lost, but those who are saved… The cross is there to remind us that every time we screw up God knew it was coming… So those who say “if this is true, I’ll do what ever I want” it just simply states that you don’t understand the Gospel.
Matt Chandler, “Family Business” Sermon on 8/15/10
One of the things that really reveals how wicked your heart is, is when you are healthy and well fed and everything is going right, tears dont stream down your face and you don’t worship him for how good He is. But you let something go wrong, you let yourself lose your job, let yourself get sick, let a plane fall out of the sky, let a love one you know die or something bad happen to them and all of a sudden there is this “God betrayed us.” He gets the blame for anything you don’t like, but doesn’t get the praise at all for the billions of common graces He has given you day in and day out… We exist to bring glory to God.
Matt Chandler, “Family Business” Sermon on 8/15/10
A Big View of God Pt. 5: God and Suffering
Many times in our lives we encounter pain, suffering, trials and the like. Often we think of these instances as God punishing us for our sins, which is sadly a lie that our society has bought into. Our suffering is not to be thought of in terms of karma; that only leads to a small, punitive view of who God is. Now I don’t want to deny that sometimes our actions have consequences, because they do, but that is because our own sinfulness has brought these things upon us not because of some cosmic force that is seeking to even out the balances.
What does suffering have to do with having a big view of who God is?
If we don’t have a big view of God, it is impossible for us to suffer well. Our pain, our trials, our cancer… all of it will be wasted if we fail to have a big view of God and apply that to how we view our circumstances in light of who He is. For almost everyone who read that last sentence (including myself), your world just got rocked.
Wasted?
Wasted!?!
Isn’t the goal of life to appease suffering and enjoy pleasure? To overcome it? To eliminate it?
If we are to be faithful to Christ, we must be able to suffer well. We cannot waste that opportunity to grow and to make much of Him. The Bible never says that following Christ includes a life of luxury and ease. We will face storms; we will suffer. And how we suffer will be determined by our view of God.
In order to suffer well we need to have a couple of basic beliefs (stolen from John Piper ):
-God is not surprised by our suffering and pain (aka, He is sovereign)
-God is good
-Our suffering is not a curse
-Our comfort is not in odds of survival, but in God
-Overcoming suffering is not survival, its cherishing Christ
-Suffering points us to Christ
-Suffering allows us to make much of Christ to those around us
Personally, I am not sure if I am ready to suffer well. I haven’t been thrown into that place yet, but I pray as I am being sanctified that I will be able to suffer well.
A couple of men that have suffered well over the past few years because of their large views of God are John Piper and Matt Chandler. John Piper is now cancer free and healthy, and Matt Chandler just finished up a round of chemo today (he will be our focus). Essentially, last Thanksgiving he had a seizure, woke up in the hospital and was told that he has a brain tumor that will most likely kill him in the next 3 years. Since then he has had a large part of the cancer removed and gone through radiation and a couple stages of chemo. He and his wife have chosen to keep his battle public so that Christ will be magnified in his suffering.
It’s easy to make much of God when life goes according to our plans, but if we lose faith when our world is seemingly torn apart, we deny God’s goodness, sovereignty and grace. After all, for believers, this world is our hell. It can only get better from here.
I would like to write more about Matt’s story, but I’ll fail to do it justice. Here is the first video he posted right before his surgery. He says it all better than I ever could.
How have you failed to bring God glory in your suffering? Post your thoughts!
Scripture to Meditate on:
Link to the AP article about Matt Chandler
Book for further study: Suffering and the Sovereignty of God
Still one of my favorite clips of all time… Matt Chandler, “Jesus wants the Rose”
