Merely Normal Christianity
written at Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Heard a sermon from D. A. Carson. He had gone
through Psalm 37-40 and had expounded on the key themes and applications from
those passages. One of the most hard hitting of all and convicting of his
sermon was a story that he had shared about a missionary friend he knows, real
name not revealed so he's just called John. So this is coming from Carson's
perspective, slightly paraphrased:
John went out as a single missionary to
Bolivia, and while he was there in his mid-late 30's, he married a missionary,
and they had a child, a little girl around 3 to 4 years of age, when they came
to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School to do a PhD. His mission wanted him to
get advanced training so that he could go back and "up" the level of
theological instruction in Bolivia. By this time, he knew the language well,
knew the culture, wanted to be there the rest of his life. So the mission
agreed to pay for his doctoral studies at Trinity.
He was there a bare 6 months, when his wife
was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, she went through all of the wretched
treatments, and look as if she was going to make it. He got back his studies
again, seminars, trying to write and prepare for his compositions before his
dissertation, when he was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer. Chicago has a
lot of cancer hospitals, they wouldn't touch him, they said it was so advanced
there was nothing they could do. The mission agreed to send him to another
clinic elsewhere and they took out 90% of his stomach and put him on rather
experimental drugs used primarily for colon cancer, lo and behold they stopped
it.
He came out of the hospital all 6'4 of him
already thin, now as skinny as a bean pole needing to eat a little something
every 2-3 hours because he didn't have any stomach to store things. And he came
back to seminary, finished his compositions, started on his dissertation, and
his wife's cancer returned, and she died. He was surrounded by godly people,
they both came from godly families, the Trinity community helped every way they
could. In due course he came back and finished his dissertation.
He came back to his home church in Illinois to
speak there, just before going back with his daughter (who was now 9 or 10
years of age), to Bolivia as a missionary.And for half and hour, all he spoke about,
using scripture, was the goodness of God.
And I want to tell you, that is merely normal
Christianity. That's all it is. It's not heroic, it's
merely seeing things in an eternal perspective, he spoke of the many
manifestations of His goodness, of all the people who had helped, showered
their time and energy on him during those difficult times, he spoke of the love
that he and his wife shared with each other and their beautiful daughter, the
Lord had preserved at least one of her parents to bring up this little girl.
And he was telling people more urgently than ever on how we are all destined to
die and then judgment. And at the end of the day, death may be the last enemy,
but it does not have the last word for we know someone who broke the bounds of death,
death is outrageous but it is not final. And he spoke of the goodness of God.
When you finally do come out of the other side
of your miry bog, don't sling into an endless pity party. Give thanks to God in
the assembly, and teach a new generation the goodness of God.
Merely Normal Christianity
written at Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Heard a sermon from D. A. Carson. He had gone
through Psalm 37-40 and had expounded on the key themes and applications from
those passages. One of the most hard hitting of all and convicting of his
sermon was a story that he had shared about a missionary friend he knows, real
name not revealed so he's just called John. So this is coming from Carson's
perspective, slightly paraphrased:
John went out as a single missionary to
Bolivia, and while he was there in his mid-late 30's, he married a missionary,
and they had a child, a little girl around 3 to 4 years of age, when they came
to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School to do a PhD. His mission wanted him to
get advanced training so that he could go back and "up" the level of
theological instruction in Bolivia. By this time, he knew the language well,
knew the culture, wanted to be there the rest of his life. So the mission
agreed to pay for his doctoral studies at Trinity.
He was there a bare 6 months, when his wife
was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, she went through all of the wretched
treatments, and look as if she was going to make it. He got back his studies
again, seminars, trying to write and prepare for his compositions before his
dissertation, when he was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer. Chicago has a
lot of cancer hospitals, they wouldn't touch him, they said it was so advanced
there was nothing they could do. The mission agreed to send him to another
clinic elsewhere and they took out 90% of his stomach and put him on rather
experimental drugs used primarily for colon cancer, lo and behold they stopped
it.
He came out of the hospital all 6'4 of him
already thin, now as skinny as a bean pole needing to eat a little something
every 2-3 hours because he didn't have any stomach to store things. And he came
back to seminary, finished his compositions, started on his dissertation, and
his wife's cancer returned, and she died. He was surrounded by godly people,
they both came from godly families, the Trinity community helped every way they
could. In due course he came back and finished his dissertation.
He came back to his home church in Illinois to
speak there, just before going back with his daughter (who was now 9 or 10
years of age), to Bolivia as a missionary.And for half and hour, all he spoke about,
using scripture, was the goodness of God.
And I want to tell you, that is merely normal
Christianity. That's all it is. It's not heroic, it's
merely seeing things in an eternal perspective, he spoke of the many
manifestations of His goodness, of all the people who had helped, showered
their time and energy on him during those difficult times, he spoke of the love
that he and his wife shared with each other and their beautiful daughter, the
Lord had preserved at least one of her parents to bring up this little girl.
And he was telling people more urgently than ever on how we are all destined to
die and then judgment. And at the end of the day, death may be the last enemy,
but it does not have the last word for we know someone who broke the bounds of death,
death is outrageous but it is not final. And he spoke of the goodness of God.
When you finally do come out of the other side
of your miry bog, don't sling into an endless pity party. Give thanks to God in
the assembly, and teach a new generation the goodness of God.
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Knowing
What matters supremely, therefore, is not
in the last analysis, the fact that I know God,
but the larger fact which underlies it --
the fact that He knows me.
J. I. Packer
