ERIKSON-TADA: Thanks so much, R.C., and the whole Ligonier
team for giving me this privileged opportunity to sit up here and open up my heart to you. You humble me greatly with this invitation
and I sit here speaking and sharing under your covering. Thank you so much. And Michael, all I can say is that you should
have been with us on the Southwest Air flight from Baltimore, Maryland, down here to Orlando. The Cathay family who are here at the Ligonier
Conference, we were sitting in the front row bulk row seats, and I think the first half
of the airplane couldn't help but hear us sing "All Creatures of our God and King." There we were just singing in the front rows
of the airplane. It was great. I love to sing, but let me tell you something,
friends. I have to sing. Oh, I have to sing. I remember much darker days when I was in
the hospital, thirty-three years ago it was, depressed, discouraged. And in the middle of the night, long after
visiting hours were over and the lights were turned out and my roommates were asleep, I
wanted so much to cry, understandably. But being paralyzed is bad enough without
being messy and paralyzed because I could not blow my nose or wipe my eyes. So, to push back the claustrophobic feelings
of fright and fear, I would sing, "Jesus, Jesus, hear my humble cry. While on others Thou art calling, do not pass
me by." And then in the daytime, when I would be flipped
face up and they would sit me up in the wheelchair and I would be positioned in front of a music
stand, much like this, on which they would put a book, they would put a mouth stick in
my mouth and I would flip the pages of my Bible reading desperately, searching for answers,
because I was the bruised reed who felt as though God had nearly broken me, and I was
the smoldering wick who thought for sure I was about to be snuffed out. My favorite portion of Scripture was one that
would echo that hymn of Jesus not passing me by. It was out of John chapter 5. May I read it to you because I think you'll
identify? "For there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep
Gate a pool, which is called Bethesda, and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used
to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for
thirty-eight years on his straw mat. When Jesus came and saw him lying there and
learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, 'Do you want
to get well?' Jesus then said to him, 'Get up and walk!'" I used to picture myself by that pool of Bethesda
lying there, I imagined, on a straw mat near that man paralyzed for over thirty years,
and I would picture in my mind's eye Jesus coming under those five columns of that colonnade,
and I would plead, "Jesus, Jesus, don't pass me by." While on others He was calling, "Please hear
my humble cry," I would pray, "Lord, heal me." But you know the story. Years passed, and I never got up and walked. I had felt as though I was broken, the bruised
reed. I was the wick who had been snuffed out. God had forgotten me, listening and responding
to the prayers of perhaps other more obedient saints. It was many years later after a Bible Presbyterian
friend of mine who had given me Dr. Loraine Boettner's book, The Reformed Doctrine of
Predestination, lying there, flipping the pages of that book and others, Berkhof's Systematic
Theology, can you believe it, that I began to see that although I might never walk physically,
that I had been privileged to be initiated into this strange fellowship of sharing in
Christ's sufferings, even becoming like Him in His death. For as I would take up my cross daily and
die to the sins for which Christ died on His cross, I would become like Him, not only in
His death, dying to sins of grumbling, complaining, resentment, fear, anxiety about the future,
doubt, misgivings, timidity. As I died to those sins for which He died
on His cross, my cross became the yoke that was light and the burden that was almost easy. And this joy of which Dr. Piper has spoken
about here at this conference, this joy of God spilling and splashing over heaven's walls,
began to rise up in my heart like a torrent flooding out to others in blessing and springing
up like a fountain of ecstatic praise to God, this joy of God that I found in the midst
of pressing my heart up against Christ's in this fellowship of sharing in His sufferings,
this sweetness of knowing the Savior, I was no longer the bruised reed. I was no longer the smoldering wick. I began to smile, not in spite of my problems,
but lo and behold, even because of them. What a miracle! Talk about upsetting my world and the world
of others around me as they observed the loyalty that this young girl, quadriplegic, placed
in her God. Surely, her God must be great to inspire that
kind of confidence. And this joy in the midst of suffering so
many years later, like the smile on that African having received his wheelchair plus received
Christ. I have been a much-blessed woman these thirty-three
years in this wheelchair to see that joy in others who have suffered in that fellowship. I'm thinking of my friend Carla, Carla Larson. Juvenile diabetes is at the root of all of
her suffering. This woman has lost both her legs. She has had a kidney transplant. She has had a heart attack. She suffers from severe edema. She is legally blind. She has lost four fingers on each of her hands. She suffers from constant angioplasties. And when this woman signed up to come to one
of our Joni and Friends family retreats—we at Joni and Friends hold retreats for families
affected by disability all across the country—and when Carla signed up to come to one of our
family retreats, and my husband Ken and I encountered her at that retreat the first
day, I wheeled up to her and I said, "Carla, I can't believe you made it here! God bless you for making the effort to come!" To which she replied, "Well Joni, I thought
I better come before I lost any more body parts." This is the same woman home who after that
retreat was so blessed by the time there, experiencing the joy of others who in their
afflictions embraced Christ, she wrote me a note and it was attached to the toe of a
plastic prosthetic foot. And the note read, "Dear Joni, since all of
me cannot be with all of you all of the time, part of me will have to do." This woman may have lost her legs and lost
a kidney and lost a couple of fingers and lost her eyesight, but she has not lost her
sense of humor. She has the beautiful sheen of 2 Corinthians
chapter 12 verse 9, the shine of God's power showing up best in the platform of her weakness. And we, we, you and me, the body of Christ,
need to rub shoulders with people like Carla. No, I am going to take that back. We don't need to rub shoulders with her. No, uh-uh. We need to be the sinews and the joints and
the ligaments connected with someone like Carla, joining us to her, compassionate with
her, compassionate with suffering, embracing her because God is glorified when she facing
greater conflict showcases the lessons that we all facing our lesser conflict need to
learn. When I spent time with Carla, I learn something
about the graciousness of accepting my own plight as a quadriplegic without use of my
hands or my legs. When I spend time not just rubbing shoulders
but when I spend time being the sinews and the joints and the ligaments connected with
the body of Christ that is showcasing God's glory in the midst of affliction, when I spend
time with people in greater conflict, like Carla, it speaks volumes to me a quadriplegic
experiencing lesser conflict because I see in her the greatest good that suffering can
do for a believer. I see Carla with her smile and the shine of
God on that face and the glory of His brightness in her blind eyes, and I see God reaching
down and stretching open her soul's capacity, capacity to receive the grace of God and to
enjoy Him even more. Believers like Carla remind us that if the
grace of God can sustain her, a woman with no legs and a borrowed kidney, then we all
ought to be boasting in our afflictions. We all ought to be rejoicing in our limitations. We all ought to be delighting in our afflictions
because then we know too that God's power can sustain us. It's something I experience every single morning
when I wake up. I mean, you would think after thirty-three
years, I'd be a veteran at this, I'd be a professional at his, I'd be used to this,
I would know how to handle this. But every morning when my husband, Ken, gets
up to go to work and he leaves the house at 6 a.m., I lie there waiting for my girlfriends. I have eight different friends who on seven
different mornings get me up in the wheelchair and so I never look the same way seven days
a week. And at 7:30, I hear one of my friends come
in the front door. I hear the clicking of the door, and I hear
water being run in the kitchen for coffee. And I am going to be honest with you, 75%
of the time this is what goes through my heart and head: "Oh God, I am so tired of being
paralyzed. I just don't think I can do this again. I have no resources for this today. I have no ability for this, but Lord Jesus,
You've got resources. You've got strength. I don't have a smile for this woman who is
about to come into my bedroom to exercise me, give me a bed bath, get me dressed, sit
me up in my wheelchair. I have no smile for her, but Lord Jesus You
do. I need You. I need desperately Your smile today. Would You please give me Yours so I might
share it with her?" And then miracle of miracles, when she comes
in my bedroom door and she walks in with that cup of coffee, I turn my head on the pillow
and I've got a smile for her, already hard fought for and hard won, but it comes straight
from heaven. And perhaps, those who are most handicapped
are the ones who when the alarm clock does go off in the morning, they throw back the
covers, they jump out of bed, they take a quick shower, they give God a speedy tip of
the hat with a fast quiet time and then they rush out the door on automatic cruise control. If you live like that, God resists you. God is against the proud, the self-resourceful,
the self-reliant, and He gives grace to the humble; yeah, even those who are humiliated
by their weaknesses. This is why we boast then, right? For we know then that God's power rests on
us, and when it does, oh, the joy of Jesus! I saw that same joy of Carla Larson's on the
face of a young woman named Ama in the country of Ghana, West Africa. I was with Michael Beates and we and a team,
as he had shared, traveled through Amsterdam to go to Accra. Mike and his team went north to a village
called Kumasi, and I stayed in Accra with a small team there, delivering wheelchairs
and Bibles, giving the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And one night, we went to the slums of Accra. It was eleven o'clock at night. The air was hot and humid and it was dark. They had cleared the marketplace and there
was leftover food and banana and orange and dog dirt and urine in the streets. The streets smelled. It was a miserable pest hole. And at eleven o'clock at night, after the
kiosks were cleared, there came out of the holes in the cracks of the building and the
doorways and the alleys, children with disabilities, children with cerebral palsy, men and women
disabled by leprosy or polio, crawling out from the cracks in the alleys come out to
scrape off the food from the pavement. This was their only subsistence, to be able
to rely on the leftovers from the marketplace that day. And in the heat and humidity, there we arrived,
me and my small team of Americans with wheelchairs and Bibles. Rev. Benjamin Kote African pastor, was our
host that night. And as I wheeled along the crumbled sidewalks
avoiding the banana peels and the oranges and the dog dirt, Benjamin ∫ took me to
the, quote, "home" of Ama, a young 17-year-old disabled woman he wanted me to meet. Ama lived on the sidewalk underneath the canvas
tarp of a little lean-to. And with a flashlight, he lifted the tarp
and shined the flashlight in her little, quote, "house" and beckoned that I might enter with
him and there was Ama. It being a former colony of Great Britain,
she spoke impeccable English, and she with pastor Benjamin Kote and I, we sat around
her little abode on her straw mat, she disabled, her legs like stick afflicted by polio. And it was as though we were having tea. "Oh, Joni," she said. "Welcome to our country. I am so glad you have come into my home. Welcome to Ghana where our God, Joni, is bigger
because we need Him more." We talked about prayer. We talked about heaven. We talked about the joy of our hearts beating
in rhythm with the Lord Jesus' in this fellowship of sharing in His suffering, and then she
said that she would like me to join her and her other friends for a worship service. "Joni, come with us. The drums are sounding even now." And so, Pastor Benjamin with his flashlight
lit the way for me and our small team, and there down the far end of the sidewalk under
a neon light was clapping and dancing and singing and rejoicing. "Higher, higher, higher, higher, higher, higher,
higher, higher, lift up Jesus higher. Lower, lower, lower, lower, lower, lower,
lower, lower get down Satan lower." And us, Americans, we sat tall, rigid, stiff
upright on our benches while we watched these happy joyous Africans dancing and singing,
"Welcome to our country where Jesus is so big here because we need Him more." And I thought to myself as I watched Ama drag
herself and dance on that sidewalk with her friends in a joyous worship service, I thought
to myself, "Yes, yes. God always seems bigger to those who need
Him most, and these people need Him so much. Isn't that wonderful?" I saw in Ama the same shine and sheen that
I recognized from Carla's face, that sheen of 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 10, "to be
"sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, to have nothing," nothing, "and yet possess everything." This is the joy of stepping into and being
initiated into that inner recess, that inner sanctum of sharing in the fellowship of Christ's
sufferings. And when you meet people like Ama and Carla,
you are popped. All of your hot air balloon of your pride
is popped with a pin of 1 Corinthians chapter 1:27 because then you realize for, "Brothers,
think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards;
not many of you were influential or of noble birth. But God has chosen the weak things of this
world to shame the strong, and He has chosen the foolish things of this world to shame
the wise. He has nullified the things that are, so that
no one may boast before Him." God is glorified and the joy of Jesus is magnified
when our boasting is nullified. How else is God glorified? When else do we sense that joy, that spilling
splashing over joy, over heaven's walls, filling our hearts, rushing up in an ecstatic praise
of God? Matthew 20 verse 28 says, "The Son of Man
did not come to be served, but to serve." It was a joy to serve Ama that night and give
her a wheelchair. It's always a joy to be around Carla. And recently when I was in Castor, England,
speaking at the fellowship of independent evangelical churches over there, a fine Reformed
group, I saw this service and a woman named Chris sitting on the front row. I was talking to the people about the individuals
who get me up in the morning, the people who serve me, the body of Christ, the hands of
Jesus that get me up. And I said to this crowd how delighted I am
to ask for help. I enjoy asking for help. My pride of self-sufficiency and self-reliance
and self-resourcefulness is diminished and nullified when I get a chance to ask for help. "Would you please help me? Would you get me dressed? Would you brush my teeth? Would you comb my hair? I need help." And I was saying how much I enjoy asking for
help because I know then that the hands who serve me are the hands that are giving a drink
to the least of the brethren, as it were, and in so doing those hands that serve gain
crowns. I sang for that little group there the same
song that I often sing to the girls who get me up in the morning when Ken is not there,
he's gone on to work, "When He cometh, when He cometh to make up His jewels." You know that from Sunday school? "All His jewels, precious jewels, His loved
and His own. Like the stars in the morning, His bright
crown adorning, they will shine in His beauty, bright gems for His crown." I often sing that to the girls who get me
up. I've got this enormous chance to be a blessing
to them because I know they are gaining jewels by serving me. And for some of them, it is sacrificial service. They don't get a chance to go down to Starbucks
and have coffee with their girlfriends that morning. No, they have to come and get me up. Oh, but we make it a joyous time of celebration. We sing songs. We read from Scripture because I want it to
be a blessing to them. I want them to see that as they serve me,
they are serving Jesus and they are gaining jewels in their crown. Chris was sitting on the front row in her
wheelchair listening to all of this, over in Castor, England. Chris, up until that morning had hated asking
for help. She much rather enjoyed the worldly safety
and security of her pride and independence, but when she heard me say how glad I am to
ask for help for it gives people a chance to gain crowns in service to me, she decided
that she was going to relay that same message the next morning to the friend who was getting
her up. And then the morning after that she decided,
"Why should my friend get all the jewels in her crown?" So, she told me later on that day, "Joni,
after my friend sat me up in the wheelchair, I told her to sit at the kitchen table. And although it took a little bit longer,
I made her tea and toast with honey and I served it to her for the first time. I felt so good that I had a chance to get
some jewels in my crown too." Mathew 20:28 says, "The Son of Man did not
come to be served, but to serve." And all the joy of Jesus when His happy-hearted
blood starts coursing through the veins of His body, sinews and joints working together,
hands serving the foot, eye, ear, listening and getting connected to the head, the joy
is magnified. I tell you where else. You can upset your world and experience the
joy in the midst of suffering. You can experience it if you meet not only
my friend Chris over there in Castor, England, and Carla and Ama, but if you might meet Charlie
Wedemeyer. Charlie Wedemeyer has Lou Gehrig's disease. He sits tall, stiff, rigid, upright in his
wheelchair. Now, I am paralyzed, but I have pretty good
shoulder muscles, halfway decent biceps. I can kinda do quad aerobics, flail my arms
around, but Charlie sits stiff, rigid, and upright. He has a ventilator. This man, because of Lou Gehrig's disease,
is so paralyzed, so limited, that he mouths his words and his wife reads his lips. But I will never forget the time that I was
in a worship service with Charlie. We were singing, "I surrender all. I surrender all." And I looked over and there is Charlie
mouthing the words to "I surrender all." And I am thinking to myself, "Here is a man
who really has surrendered all." I felt weak-hearted that day. I felt tired. I felt weary, but oh, was I energized! God took a syringe of heaven-hearted grace
and so just infused it into my heart, pumping me up with a perspective sent straight from
heaven as I saw if this man with his Lou Gehrig's can sing, "I surrender all," can't I do what
Hebrews chapter 13 verse 15 says, "Through Jesus, therefore, let us offer a sacrifice
of praise." That was what Charlie was doing that day at
that worship service, and that's what God calls any of us to do if we are to experience
His joy in suffering. You know what a sacrifice of praise is, don't
you? I'm sure you do. But for those who might not, may I illustrate
it this way? Suppose somebody would embroider you a set
of pillowcases for a gift. My! That would be nice. And you would admire those stitches and that
beautiful embroidery, but then probably a few days later after you showed it around
it might sit in your linen closet and be forgotten. But suppose you knew that the person who had
embroidered those pillowcases for you suffered from severe arthritis in her hands. The gift would mean so much more to you because
you would realize that it took great pain for those fingers to thread that needle and
carefully stitch all that embroidery. You would realize that gift involved cost
and effort and pain and sacrifice. And so, not only would the gift be more valuable,
but you would feel so highly esteemed in that this individual thought so much of you to
present you such a treasured gift. That's what Charlie Wedemeyer gives to God
when he sings "I surrender all," and that's what you and I give to God when in the midst
of our affliction we "fix our praise" as the psalmist says. We are determined. We set our face like flint and we praise God
through the tears. It is as though we are giving God a set of
embroidered pillowcases, and the gift to Him means so much more because He knows it involves
cost and effort and sacrifice, and not just the gift is more valuable, but God, may I
say, God feels so much more highly esteemed because He can see how we magnify Him with
our sacrifice of praise. And oh, when God peers down through the roofs
of our houses of worship on any given Sunday morning and He sees our congregations, not
all Emily Post picture perfect, but peppered salt and peppered with people who are hurting,
Carla Larsons’ and Chrises’ and even Amas’ and Charlies. When He sees people like this and you in your
affliction offering Him a sacrifice of praise, He lets that joy of His flood even more over
heaven's walls spilling and splashing down on our hearts. And the thermometer and the thermostat of
our heat of passion for Him just goes up and the wattage on His glory is magnified and
the joy is doubled and tripled and quadrupled. How else do we experience the joy in suffering? Romans 5:8 says that "While we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us." When I read that verse, I think of Wayne,
my homeless friend, Wayne. I'm not sure where he is today. He got a little tired of living in the cloverleaf
by the Kanan Road exit of the 101 San Diego freeway, not far from our church. Wayne is one of those homeless people who
has gone to the Santa Barbara Rescue Mission and then to the L.A. Mission, and I hear tell
he might be out at the San Bernardino Mission now. He prefers his state of homelessness, but
nevertheless we love Wayne. We reach out to Wayne and when he passes by
our exit on the 101 freeway, little PCA church that I attend, my husband and I, we reach
out to Wayne. Wayne's not a very pretty person. Wayne has left the calling card of his urine
against the walls of our church. That has in the past irritated some, but we
have embraced Wayne. Oh, we connected him with a job skills training
program down in Orange County. We advocated him, found him subsidized housing. For a little while, Wayne came to our church,
was a part of our fellowship, and as I said, when he is by the Kanan Road exit of 101 he
may yet still come by and see us. Wayne is one of those people who tests the
body of Christ. But I tell you what? In reaching out to Wayne and cleaning the
urine off the side of our church building and his other calling cards, I tell you what? Our congregation has a whole new appreciation
for Romans chapter 5 verse 8, for we have seen through Wayne, embracing him in the midst
of suffering that fellowship. We have seen what it means for love to take
the initiative. The love of Christ does not wait around for
you and I to get all clean and tidy, to get all fresh and washed up. No, love doesn't wait for us to make an apology
before it gives itself to us; "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." And although Wayne may never change, although
Wayne may remain homeless, although all the investments we've made in that man may never
have a return, that is not the point. The point is to keep loving, keep giving,
keep serving. The love of God takes the initiative. The love of God doesn't wait for a return. The love of God doesn't expect a payback. The love of God doesn't even hope for an apology. For "while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us." And to just have the peace and the confidence
that you give the love of God in the face of abuse or scorn or disdain or the face of
turning back on and walking away to another rescue mission, you know the joy of Jesus
because you have loved as He loved taking the initiative when there is no return. Thank God for Wayne teaching at least a few
of us in our congregation that precious lesson. There is another lesson too in Psalm 39:1. "I will quit complaining. I will keep my mouth shut when the ungodly
are around me." Oh, the joy of Jesus. Oh, the joy in suffering when you and I have
a chance to showcase His power to upset the world around us that does not believe in Him. When unbelievers look at the way we reach
out to Wayne, they know that we are Christians by the love that we have for one another. And when unbelievers look at someone like
Carla and they listen to her jokes, they're taken aback. They are a little embarrassed because they
see that this is the foolishness of God far wiser than their human wisdom. This is the weakness of God far stronger than
their human strength, and their boasting is nullified and our joy is magnified. Suffering, joy in the midst of it, gives us
this incredible chance to showcase the power of God to an unbelieving globe, to a planet
that doesn't understand Him. But my, does it upset the world! Sacrifices of praise, love taking the initiative,
no longer complaining, and showcasing Him to a world that doesn't believe in Him. Being sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, having
nothing yet processing everything, boasting in your affliction. Carla, Ama, Chris, Charlie, Wayne; what a
joy it is to be in this fellowship of sharing in His sufferings! I received an email from Carla recently, just
very recently, and I learned that her transplanted kidney is failing. It means that Carla is soon to be with the
Lord Jesus. In her email she wrote me 2 Corinthians chapter
5 verse 12, "Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed in our heavenly dwelling." That's another aspect of the joy in suffering. When you hang around people who experience
affliction gracefully, the hope of heaven begins to rub off on you and you too find
yourself "eagerly awaiting a Savior from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by His power will
transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body." And Carla, bless her heart, I fired an email
back to her, and I gave her the words of that old Fanny Crosby hymn, Saved By Grace. "When silver threads of life are o'er and
I no more than now shall sing. But oh, the joy when I awake within the palace
of the King." Carla and I can't wait. Ama in Africa with her polio can't wait. Charlie with his Lou Gehrig's disease can't
wait. I wonder if Wayne can't wait. I sure hope he can't wait. Chris can't wait. All the girls who get her up in the morning
and me in the morning, we can't wait. We eagerly anticipate a Savior from heaven,
that day when Jesus will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body. Oh, the hope that we have for a hurting hungry
world that thinks that this parade of life is the only life there is, the hope that we
have that one day hands will work and feet that walk, the eyes of the blind will be opened,
the ears of the deaf unstopped, the tongues of those who can't speak will shout for joy! Charlie will shout for joy, and lame people
like me will leap like deer, and I can't wait to stand up with my brand-new great splendorous
body and I will lift my arms way up high above my head. I can't come up any higher than this. This is it. I wouldn't make a good charismatic, but I
love going to Assemblies of God churches and telling them this. They laugh at that. I can't wait for wait for me to get my hands
way up in the air. I'll splay my fingers and scream out, "Worthy
are You, Jesus, the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!" And I will walk up to my Savior. And I have shared this before, but I will
say it again. I hope that I can have my wheelchair in heaven
with me. I know that's not theologically correct, neither
is it Reformed. The two are synonymous. But if it were possible to have that wheelchair
in heaven with me, I would walk up to my Savior and I would say, "Lord Jesus, do You see that
wheelchair there? Before You send it to hell, I want to tell
you something." I don't know. Maybe that is theologically correct. I will say, "Lord Jesus, I'm going to tell
You something You already know, but give me the pleasure of praising You by saying this
because the weaker I was in that thing the harder I leaned on You, and the harder I leaned
on You, the stronger I discovered You to be. I'm so grateful." And He'll see these tears and He'll know I
mean it, because He will have recognized me from the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings. He will say to me, "Oh Joni, yes, you were
the one who came to Me hemorrhaging human strength, and you touched Me and power went
out of Me, as did My joy." And sometimes I think that those who are most
handicapped are those who aren't Charlie and they aren't Carla or they aren't Ama or Chris. Those who are most handicapped are the ones
who waste their sufferings. They waste them. Affliction comes to them and they want to
escape it or they want to fix it or they want to get healed from it or they want to run
away from it or divorce it. They forget that they are to welcome it as
a friend, a strange friend. They forget that they are to boast in it and
delight in it, for then God's power is supposed to rest on them. What if you never were persecuted? What if you never were bypassed that promotion? What if you never had a twisted ankle or a
cracked molar? What if you never had felt rejected or forsaken? How could you go up to the most godforsaken
man who will ever live, the Lord Jesus, and say to Him, 'Thank You. Thank You for that death You died for me on
the cross. Thank You." If you had never been given the opportunity
to be in the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death,
how could you say, "Thank you" and hold hands that were scarred if your heart had never
been scarred with suffering? But God gives us Carla and God gives us Amas
and God gives us Chris and He gives us Charlie Wedemeyers so that we might welcome our trials
as friends knowing that somewhere somehow, way down the road in the midst of it all,
as we approach Calvary and as we take up our cross and die to the sins for which He died,
then and there we experience His joy. Friend, the Word of God 1 Corinthians 12:22
virtually shouts, "Those who we are weaker are indispensable." Funny we read a verse like that and we think
it's a pious platitude to the weak. We read Luke 14 where it says, "Go out and
find the lame, the disabled, the poor, and the blind, and bring them in." And we think we are the ones who are a blessing
to them, but Jesus says, "Do this and you will be blessed." Not if you only rub shoulders with Carla Larson,
but if you become the sinews and the ligaments and the joints and connect yourself to Carla
Larson and compassion with her, being in the midst of her suffering, embrace someone like
her, listen to her, and a little bit of the sheen and the shine of God's grace and her
weakness rub off on you. This is why the weaker are indispensable because
God's power shows up best in weakness. 1 Corinthians 12:24 and 26 says that God has
combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it
so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal
concern for each other. Did you get that part about no division? When someone in your congregation is suffering,
when you are afflicted, we, the hands, the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, His body,
His body is moved into action. Nerve endings stand at attention. Adrenaline begins flowing. The muscles are spring-loaded for motion. Eyes are focused on the need and the ears
are attentive to its call and feet begin moving in the right direction and the body gets stronger
when it goes the second mile. It becomes united in purpose. Therefore, there is no division in the body
because there is no time for the church of Jesus Christ to be fractured when someone
is suffering in its midst and we the rest of the body are ministering and alleviating
that suffering. There's no time to argue about what color
the church carpet should be because the sinews and the joints and the ligaments are moving
and we are learning and giving and sharing. And the parts that seem weaker are given special
honor because we can all learn from the Carla Larsons and the Charlie Wedemeyers. In closing, a short while ago, my husband,
Ken, and I—and by the way, I wish he could be here, but it was finals this week. He's a high school teacher and last night
was graduation. He sends his greetings, but I wish he were
here. We're coming up on eighteen years of marriage. What a gem! He's got lots of jewels in his crown, I tell
you. Ken and I took a trip to the Holy Land. Oh, it was wonderful! And for those of you who have been to Israel,
you know what I mean, don't you? We had the best time going up and down the
Jordan River Valley. We visited the city of Jericho, the little
town of Bethlehem. We reserved one whole day to tour the old
city of Jerusalem. In fact, we chose to go there at high noon
when we knew that most of the tour buses would not be there in the heat of the day. Ken wheeled me through the Jaffa Gate and
there we were at the top of what they called the "Via Dolorosa," the Way of the Cross,
the Stations of the Cross. Every pilgrim to Jerusalem goes through those
Stations of the Cross, although Ken and I did not start at the bottom and work our way
up the hill. When you are in a wheelchair, you start at
the top of the hill and kind of bumpety bump, bump your way down those long steps. And if you have been there, you know what
I mean. Right at the bottom of the steps, Ken wheeled
me over the cobblestones and we go down this long path and there to the right is the Sheep
Gate, and near the Temple Mount we make a left-hand turn. We go down more flagstone steps and we see
the St. Anne's Church on the right and we go a little bit further and there—I had
not looked at the itinerary, I did not know what was in store for me—but they are all
of a sudden in full plain view, "Ah! Would you look at this? Oh my goodness, Ken! Ken, look it's the Pool of Bethesda." Nobody was there. It was hot. It was dry. The sun was beating down. The place was empty. We had it to ourselves. Ken pole-vaulted the guardrail fence and ran
down into the cisterns to see if there really was still water in that Pool of Bethesda. I, on the other hand, chose to sit behind
the guardrail and lean on the top rail and I let the hot dry wind whip my hair as hot
tears poured down my face, and I suddenly had a flood of memories come back to me when
in the hospital visiting hours were over and the lights had been turned out and my roommates
were asleep, I pictured myself and here I am. And there I was praying saying, "Lord Jesus,
the wisdom of You to wait thirty years to bring me here to this pool," almost as many
years as that man must have laid on his mat paralyzed. "And Lord Jesus, there were so many times
I've prayed to be healed and sang to You that song, 'Hear my humble cry. While on others Thou art calling, do not pass
me by.' And Jesus, I just want to tell You something. You didn't pass me by. A "no" answer to physical healing has just
meant the chance to meet people like Carla and Ama and Charlie. A "no" answer to healing has meant a deeper
initiation into that inner sanctum of sharing in the fellowship of Your sufferings. And at times, Lord Jesus, You know well that
my EKG reading has been Yours and my heartbeat has been in rhythm with Yours, and You know
that I have felt the weight of that cross to bear dearly, but it has given others a
chance to gain jewels in their crown. And Lord Jesus, I am so happy. I am so happy. I am so happy. Thank You that You have given me a buoyant
hope of heaven in this wheelchair and You have given me the chance to experience grace
upon grace upon grace every day. That I need You desperately is such a blessing. Oh, it's a bruising of a blessing. It is a severe mercy, but it is a mercy and
it is sweet, and You are precious, and I am so grateful that You did not give me the quick
fix of a fast healing and an escape from suffering." Later on that day, my husband and my friends
and I, we were at the Wailing Wall and I wheeled up to it and we wrote the mission statement
of Joni and Friends, which is to communicate the gospel and to equip Christ-honoring churches
worldwide to evangelize and disciple people affected by disability. I put it on a little folded piece of paper,
and as you do at the Wailing Wall, my husband tucked it into one of the cracks. And while he did, I looked up and there was
a brush, a big feathery pine-like bough, a brush, sticking out of the Wailing Wall and
there were little sparrows nesting in it. And I thought of Psalm 84, "How it is that
the sparrow has made her nest near the altar?" I smiled to think that when the Psalmist wrote
that he recognized that the sparrow chose not to make her nest in some quiet, safe,
amiable corner of the temple where there was peace, where there was tranquility. No, the sparrow has made her home near the
altar, near the place of sacrifice, near the place of horror and blood and service and
smoke and pain. And I thank God for that present reminder
that all of us make our nest near the altar, the cross of Christ, a place of sacrifice
and blood and pain. And as the church of Jesus Christ exercises
its muscles, embracing those who suffer, it rises to its calling. It boasts in its affliction. It welcomes trials as friends. Suffering then, the pain of it is squelched. Its pain is purged and the darkness which
chokes the hearts and blinds the eyes is pushed back and the body is strengthened, and God
becomes bigger because we all recognize how desperately we need Him. Bruised reeds become tall strong oaks and
smoldering wicks ignite, strike the match, and set afire the passion of the Lord Jesus
in the hearts of us all. God bless you, and thank you for listening.
