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“The suffering of Christ is a call for a certain mind-set toward suffering. . .” John Piper

May 8, 2012 by John Knight

Though pointed toward cross-cultural missions, this quote from Pastor John’s book, Let the Nations Be Glad, is applicable to any of us called to persevere through suffering for the sake of Christ and for others:

The suffering of Christ is a call for a certain mind-set toward suffering, namely, that it is normal and that the path of love and missions will often require it.

Thus, Peter says, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12).

Suffering with Christ is not strange; it is your calling, your vocation.

John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad, p. 78.

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“You do all things well.” Pastor Josh McPherson

May 7, 2012 by John Knight

I am very grateful to Justin Tayor for pointing to these videos from Josh McPherson, Pastor of Grace Covenant Church, who just welcomed his fourth child and second with disabilities into the world.

Josh and I corresponded earlier this year.  I’m grateful to God for men like him!  One thing I’m grateful for is in how he prepares his people for suffering through his own experiences.  For example, he shared with them this past January what he wrote in his journal just before they learned their son, Gideon, would also live with Spina Bifida:

“We will entrust ourselves into your hands. We love you Father. Thanks for being good, and for being in control. There is nothing sweeter, nor brings more comfort, than this. You do all things well.”

45 minutes after writing those words, I heard the words, for the second time in my life, “Spina Bifida”, and nothing about what I wrote changed. Will it be hard in the days to come? Most definitely. Has it changed our family forever? Completely. Is there pain? Absolutely. Is there heartache? Certainly. But oh how much more quickly the sun broke through the clouds this time, for we knew that there was design in this suffering, and that brings tremendous hope.

The two minute introduction below is amazing.  Then read or watch the entire sermon and feel the weight of Paul’s description of the Christian life in this man’s home, “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing (2 Corinthians 6:10).”  I was tremendously blessed and encouraged by it!

Posted in Sermons | 1 Comment »

The suffering of Jesus Christ will yield its fruit: an end to suffering

May 6, 2012 by John Knight

Paragraph formatting is mine:

God is not needy; we are.

God is not dependent on us, but we are helpless without him.

God determines the future, and therefore we can be confident that his suffering for us in Jesus Christ will yield the promised fruit: everlasting peace in a world where suffering is no more and God will be all in all.

Michael Horton, A Place for Weakness: Preparing Yourself for Suffering, p. 68.

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A gift and a greater gift

May 5, 2012 by John Knight

George Will offered a great gift to families like ours when he wrote about his son with Down syndrome this past week:

He, however, with an underdeveloped entitlement mentality, has been equable about life’s sometimes careless allocation of equity. Perhaps this is partly because, given the nature of Down syndrome, neither he nor his parents have any tormenting sense of what might have been. Down syndrome did not alter the trajectory of his life; Jon was Jon from conception on.

I’m grateful God placed Jon Will into a family that includes a man who is read in newspapers and watched on television all over the world.  George Will has been a helpful voice for those living with disabilities.

But Justin Taylor, on his blog, offered a greater gift in his comments on George Will’s article:

In the fight for human dignity—which includes caring for the unborn, caring for orphans, caring for those with disabilities—we need to see hearts changed by the gospel and laws changed in the land. But we also need a cultural of encouragement for those who are in need, and more stories like this can only help.

And I pray that George Will, who is an agnostic, will recognize that the only basis for human dignity is our equality before our Creator, who made each of us in his image, and that redemption can only be found in the person and in the work of Jesus Christ.

I see Justin’s response as the greater gift for two reasons:

  1. Justin points to Jesus.  That is so much more important than anything else anyone has to say about disability or any other topic.
  2. Justin doesn’t have to point to disability, but he has come back to it time and again over the years.  His is a clear, consistent, Biblical call for the entire church, not just those of us directly impacted, to see this issue as important.  Those of us who live with this as a daily issue in our families owe men like him a great debt for his service.

God knows what he is doing, and I am grateful to God for Justin Taylor’s voice on this issue, for God’s glory and for our good.

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Tell your pastors to come with you!

May 4, 2012 by John Knight

Desiring God’s conference on disability is only six months away!

Yes, I know, the entire summer is still before us.  But I also know it will take time for some of you to convince your church leadership that this conference is for them as well.

And this may sound funny since I attend and am very grateful for my ‘big’ church, but I’m REALLY praying for many of two particular kinds of pastors to attend: pastors from small churches, and pastor/fathers of disabled children.  One of my favorite times of year is the annual Desiring God Conference for Pastors because I get to see and spend some time with pastors who are on the front lines, often by themselves (with their wives), doing some great and hard work.  I love those men.

And the ones living in the dual fishbowls of the pastorate and raising a child with a disability – they are my heroes.

On Wednesday the Desiring God team let me post six reasons why pastors should attend at the Desiring God blog.  Please use these if you find them useful.  Even better, add your own reasons in the comments below!

Let’s make this conference look so attractive and enriching for church leaders to attend that suddenly our little niche issue of disability doesn’t feel so niche after all.

God will get the glory, and we will get the joy!

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Very grateful for reminders about the bigness of God

May 3, 2012 by John Knight

A great reminder for me that:

  1. God made everything, including those who live with disabilities.
  2. Human beings foolishly devise evil plans against God that won’t stand.
  3. God can do and will do everything he has always intended to do.
  4. We can trust God to respond to threats (of all kinds) and we can continue to speak the word with boldness.

I get that in just a few verses from Acts 4:22-30:

When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, (point one) “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit,

(Point two) “‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers were gathered together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed’—

for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, (point three) to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, (point 4) look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” (Acts 4:23-30 ESV)

God is purposeful and glorious in all his ways.  Thank you, Lord, for Jesus!

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“Never doubt that God is totally for you in Christ.” John Piper

May 2, 2012 by John Knight

I’m reading a 30-year-old book on infanticide and the evil it summarizes over human history is mind-boggling and devastating.  It doesn’t appear we’ve made much progress in slowing it down.

God is still sovereign.  Jesus is still more glorious than anything.  Evil is not in charge here.

From Spectacular Sins and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ by John Piper, pp. 50-51:

Four Things Never to Do with Evil

  1. Never despair that this evil world is out of God’s control. “[He] works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11).
  2. Never give in to the sense that because of seemingly random evil, life is absurd and meaningless. “How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! . . . For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever” (Rom. 11:33, 36).
  3. Never yield to the thought that God sins or is ever unjust or unrighteous in the way he governs the universe. “The Lord is righteous in all his ways” (Ps. 145:17).
  4. Never doubt that God is totally for you in Christ. If you trust him with your life, you are in Christ. Never doubt that all the evil that befalls you—even if it takes your life—is God’s loving, purifying, saving, fatherly discipline. It is not an expression of his punishment in wrath. That wrath fell on Jesus Christ our substitute (Gal. 3:13; Rom. 8:3). Only mercy comes to us from God, not wrath, if we are his children through faith in Jesus. “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Heb. 12:6).

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“I found full freedom. . .” – Chai Ling

May 1, 2012 by John Knight

Chai Ling, who participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square Movement, writes an incredible summary of Chen Guangcheng’s story in the Huffington Post yesterday.

Chen Guangcheng’s story is amazing even before we learn he is blind!

But that isn’t the best part.  Coming at the end, Chai Ling expresses her greater hope for Chen Guangcheng and all of China:

I, too, glimpsed freedom when I escaped from the grasp of the Chinese government two decades ago. And more recently I found full freedom in the name of one who — like Chen — suffered beatings, threats and imprisonment for his challenging words: Jesus of Nazareth.

It is my hope that Jesus’ calling to “proclaim liberty to the oppressed, and set the captives free” will soon be realized throughout China. Chen’s story may only be the beginning.

Amen!

I had never heard of All Girls Allowed or Chai Ling until reading this article.  I encourage you to read her short testimony and marvel at the goodness and sovereignty of God.

Posted in commentary, News | 3 Comments »

Why Chen Guangcheng makes me think of the man born blind

April 30, 2012 by John Knight

As I write this, Chen Guangcheng is still reportedly at the United States embassy in China.  He is famous because he has stood against a great evil in China:

A self-taught lawyer, he has called attention to human rights abuses against the disabled and women who have been forcibly sterilized.

In Crisis Over Dissident, U.S. Sends Official to Beijing, The New York Times, April 29, 2012.

And he is blind.  I have yet to read a story that doesn’t make mention, usually multiple times, to his blindness.

Obviously, God has gifted him with both intellectual gifts and with courage.  We value those gifts a great deal, especially when applied to helping others who are weak.  And since we consider him inherently part of the weak because of his disability, we are doubly amazed.

It does not appear his life has been easy at any point. If I am reading his history correctly, Chen Guangcheng couldn’t even read until he was 23 yet by the time he was 34 he was bringing a lawsuit against the Chinese government in Shandong  Province for their brutal enforcement of the one-child policy.

The man born blind lived with such a problem of lack of opportunity.  He was only allowed to beg in his adulthood (John 9:8).

But when given the opportunity, he spoke truth to authority:

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”  (John 9:24-25 ESV)

Those in authority gave him another chance, and he refused to back down or be caught in their political games:

They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” (John 9:26-33 ESV)

The result: he was cast out (John 9:34).

Chen Guangcheng and the man born blind had unexpected gifts of insight, articulation and courage – and it appears both were underestimated until it was impossible to ignore them.

Are we doing the same with our church members with disabilities, missing the gifts and the opportunities for their expressing those gifts for the benefit of others?

Posted in commentary, News, Scripture | 1 Comment »

Let us stand like this man

April 29, 2012 by John Knight

I had the pleasure of joining a group of people on Friday that included a Christian man from Ghana.  He loves Jesus and he holds tightly to the promises of God in ways that are beautiful and humbling.  He has been evangelizing, mentoring and teaching for years in Western Africa, including in some very dangerous places.

Last year he lost his daughter to an illness of some kind, a beautiful 21-year-old young woman about to finish college.  He and his wife suffered greatly.  The response from some of the Christian ‘leaders’ he knows made me sick: ‘confess your sins to me and she will be made well’ or ‘I have received a prophetic word that God has heard your prayers and she will leave the hospital.’  So little compassion, so much presumption, and so little Bible.

Yet, he knows that God is sovereign and good.

In fact, he spent most of the time talking about the dangerous advance of the health, wealth and prosperity gospel.  Too many ‘pastors’ are selling God as little more than a robot programmed to respond to certain actions: if you need money, give the church more money and it will be returned to you in blessing; if you experience sickness, it is your fault because you don’t have enough faith, or you have unconfessed sin, or you have not been generous enough with your church.

No talk of the suffering Jesus told us to expect.  No talk of Jesus being of greater treasure than all earthly goods.  No mention of seeking God above all things.  No hope in future grace.

We spoke a bit about disability and the news was the same: it is presented as God’s curse and families are given a terrible, hopeless picture of God.  There is no talk among the prosperity preachers about disability serving a greater purpose for the glory of God and the benefit of his church. There is no trusting in the Word where God takes full responsibility for disability in this present age.

Yet, this man stands on promises and clings to Jesus and talks of God’s mercy and grace and peace even in the hardest of circumstances, like the death of his much-loved daughter.  I want to be like him.

And I want the cruel, inhumane, unbiblical, Satanic prosperity gospel to go away, forever.  Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Posted in commentary | 13 Comments »

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