What I Am Already Learning from the Situation with Matt Chandler

It is a profound thing to be chosen to suffer.

It is an even more profound thing to be chosen to suffer while the world looks on.

As most of you know, Matt Chandler, Acts 29 Board Member, has been diagnosed with a tumor on the frontal lobe of his brain and is scheduled for surgery this Friday.

Because of the uniqueness of Matt’s ministry and his impact on us all, as we pray for Matt’s speedy recovery, I believe God has graced us with a unique opportunity to stop and reflect on our own frailty and pressing issues in our own lives. It is my hope that my sharing of my own personal reflections could perhaps serve you as well.

As you would expect, Chandler’s unexpected illness has hit close to home for me and many others for several reasons. The first of which is the most obvious.

Matt is young pastor with a younger congregation with young children in his early thirties…this is me.

In fact, this is most of us who are reading this post.

And this reveals the first truth that guys in their early thirties like to try to ignore.

Anything could happen at any moment.

We may think otherwise. We may plan otherwise. We may try to insulate ourselves and pretend that this is not true, but situations like this remind us that despite God’s immense grace to us, the fallout of the fallen world still falls on all of us.

In a moment like this, all of us who feel invincible would be wise to remember James 4:13-17.

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. James 4:13-17 ESV

And I believe this unexpected Sovereign intervention calls us not just to reflection but also to action.

In this moment, I pray that all of us would be asking questions like:

In light of the fragility of life, what is it that God is calling me to do that I have been putting off?

Having that conversation with someone…?

Listening to your doctor about losing the weight…?

Adjusting your schedule to make more time for your family…?

Reconciling with that brother or sister from which you are estranged…?

If God is speaking to you about something specific, please do it. Do it today. Don’t give your flesh the opportunity to deceive you into putting it off until the someday that becomes never.

The second thing that I am being reminded is that

God really is in control.

Nearly all of us who are reading this post prize and readily proclaim the Sovereignty of God. In our day, the acceptance of this doctrine has become almost assumed among younger evangelicals as long as long as God’s sovereignty remains simply a theological concept.

But what about in these moments when it seems to become almost too real…?

Is this doctrine still an anchor?

A comfort?

Do we lean on our theology to hold us up in our own times of trial?

By God’s grace, Matt is. His tweets show it.

The first one from when the news broke:

“Thanks for all the prayers…I have a small mass In my frontal lobe…dye with the neurosurgeon early next week…I am His and confident”

Or the tweet and Facebook message from Driscoll containing Matt’s words.

“Matt Chandler my dear friend & Acts 29 board member texted. He’s got surgery on Fri & will be in ICU for the night & hospital for up to a week. He said he’s, “confident that He has chosen me for this and pray that I might suffer well while the world watches.” Prayer for he, his wife, children, & church are appreciated….”

These statements are coming from a man who doesn’t just believe in the Sovereignty of God but who walks in it, rests in it, and is leveraging it in the midst of his most difficult hour. His example, even at the beginning of what could be of a long road, calls us to do the same in our own difficulties no matter how big or small.

I believe there is another message in Driscoll’s tweet as well.

Matt knows that because of his public platform that his suffering will be public as well.

I believe the question for us here is “do we?”

Few of us will ever have a following like Matt Chandler, but all of us live our lives in front of other people.

Our wives. Our children. The churches we pastor. We are mistaken to think that any of us suffers entirely in the shadows.

Not long ago, John Piper served us well in his own battle with prostate cancer with “Don’t Waste Your Cancer” and though we may not face these particular struggles, we do face our own struggles in front of a watching world.

Finally, I am struck by the response of the Village Church elders. Their obvious concern to shepherd both their shepherd and their sheep well and encourage them to keep their eyes on Jesus is such an evidence of grace to us all.

I have been particularly encouraged and challenged by this and, in light of their example, have begun to put a plan in place for what to do if something similar were to happen to me.

Could God be calling you to do the same?

In many ways, it is possible that Matt, a man who is such a gift to us all, is just beginning this journey. As his brothers and sisters, we need to passionately pray for him, his family his church and His healing.

As we pray, we must also recognize that there is much more at stake here than simply the restoration of his physical body.

This is a opportunity for the glory of God to be magnified through this difficult situation in a way that is entirely unique.

This is opportunity for the Gospel to go out through Matt Chandler in a way that it never has, though, this time, not through his mouth, but through his life.

And from what I know of Matt, that is what I know he wants the most.

The recent interview that I did with Matt can be found here and here.