More Plagiarism

So I was listening to something this morning and thought it was awesome and challenging and all that good and difficult stuff about faith wrapped up in one line of thought.  It was from one of Matt Chandler's sermons (The Village Church...Dallas area) based on Colossians 1.  Anyway, I'm just going to plagiarize his words...so here you go...
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Now watch what [Paul] pulls here, because I want to talk for a little bit about this in light of what I believe is a false and horrible gospel that you hear often. “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience. . .” I’ve heard this said before, so I’m just going to throw this out there. If it’s God’s will for all of us that nobody to gets sick and nobody has any trouble and we’re all supposed to be wealthy, if that’s true, why do we need to have patience and endurance? If all we have for loving Jesus is a life of ease ahead of us, then why is this in the Bible over and over and over again? My problem with the Prosperity Gospel, despite the fact that it’s such garbage, is if you just take a step back and look, is this true for anyone? That’s the thing that I get confused by. Who doesn’t bleed? Who doesn’t suffer? Who doesn’t get sick? Who doesn’t have bad years? Who gets this life? If you can show them to me, you’re showing me some three-year-old. And I’ll say, “Let’s hold off until he gets to puberty, okay?” So I don’t understand the mindset of the Prosperity Gospel. This is why people get angry when you say God is part of this cancer that I have. People get real angry because they’ve been taught that God’s purpose in the universe is to make much of us, make much of me, make much of you, that there is no hurt or struggle for us. But the Bible just said, “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience. . .”


And then there was one last word at the end there. It says, “. . .for all endurance and patience with joy...” Joy in my circumstance? I’ll give it to you like this. I have stage-3 anaplastic oligodendroglioma, malignant brain cancer. They’ll tell you how long you have, but they don’t know. It’s just the truth. They’ll even say that. Any doctor worth his salt will. All they have are statistics. And I think it was Twain that said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” In the end, here's what I know. Here’s a place of deep joy for me. As a pastor, I know that some people go for a run and they don’t come home. Some people get in the car, maybe kiss their spouse goodbye and don’t come back home. And I know last night, we celebrated my daughter’s 7th birthday, and I got in bed with my wife and I woke up this morning and had breakfast with my children. And I’m going to die just like you. I don’t know when, but it’s coming for me. And I know I have a little window of knowing it’s coming. I don’t know how long that window is, but it means that I get to climb in bed and be unbelievably grateful that I got another day. It means I get to wake up tomorrow (Lord willing) and be unbelievably grateful that I got another day. And that gift has brought me an immense amount of joy. So now, by the grace of God and the strength of God, I’m trying to walk well through what He has for me. And I said it correctly. This is what God has for me. God was not asleep on this thing...oligodendroglioma grows slowly. It was probably in my brain for 20 years. Over the last 20 years, God was not blind to that. It didn’t surprise Him. Thanksgiving morning didn’t make Him go, “Oh, Gabriel, get over here. Here’s the plan. Here’s what I want to do. You get down there and find him a surgeon. You, find an oncologist. You, go. . .” This is not how it played out. It didn’t surprise Him. In fact, He was like, “Okay, it’s time,” and all that was set into motion before that, things that I didn’t even know about until now, were controlled by a good, mighty, beautiful God. And so that belief enables me to walk with joy, patience and endurance through a difficult season.
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So there you go...obviously, that's not the whole sermon...so if you want to check it out, click here.  I'd also highly recommend The Village Church podcast.  Good stuff.  Ok...bye