From the Pastor

Carl's Message - Oct. 8,2006

Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving.

About two weeks ago Pastor Brad took me aside and said “Carl, Heidi and I are going to attend a wedding in Vegreville, AB and won’t be here for Thanksgiving Sunday”. I responded with a “that’s nice”. Pastor went on to say that there will be a lay led service on Thanksgiving and was wondering if I was willing to help out. Sure Pastor, no problem, I have led the order of service in the past and feel comfortable in doing it again. Pastor replied: I have already asked Wayne B. to lead the order of worship, I was wondering if you could deliver the sermon. Sure Pastor, no problem, just make sure you email it to me before you leave and that will give me a chance to go over it and make sure I am prepared to read it during the service. Well, Pastor replied, I was kind of hoping that you would be open to preparing and delivering the message. There followed this awkward silence and I had this blank look on my face. You know the look – like a deer staring into headlights. At this point my instinctive defense mechanisms started to kick in as I replied: Ahhh, let me get back to you on that.

For two or three days I didn’t respond. I was fighting this battle inside of me. On one hand I could just say to Pastor that I am very uncomfortable doing this, I would be terrified, I would be so nervous and my voice would squeak so please find someone else to do it. He would have accepted my feeble excuses and respected my feelings, he would have found an alternative solution and nobody would have known the better. Except me of course. As a Christian I often pray for God to use me as He sees fit. By passing on this opportunity not only would I be saying no to the request of my Pastor but I would also be saying no to the opportunity that God placed before me. So I decided to go outside of my comfort zone and here I am ready to deliver today’s message. What’s the worst that could happen? You all seem to be very nice people. The message may not be eloquently worded or professionally scripted but I assure you that I have given allot of thought to this and am speaking from the heart.

For today’s message I have chosen a scripture reading that was very impact full to me in one of the lowest points of my life. It is from Matthew Chapter 25 starting at verse 31.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on the throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right (aka the sheep) Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? The King will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.

The scripture then goes on to explain the fate of those on the left. We all know what happened to those on His left (aka the goats). Not so good. I don’t know about you but I sure don’t want to be a goat.

There have been times in my life when people have asked me the question: How do you know that God really exists? This is a great question and one in which we as Christians should be prepared to answer. I responded by saying that God manifests Himself in so many ways. Firstly, He manifests Himself in Creation. Look all around you at the beauty of nature, the splendor of the stars, planets, sun, and the galaxies, the complexity of the human anatomy, the intricate balance of nature, and, all of God’s beautiful creatures. Everything , even at the subatomic level has purpose and design. God’s fingerprint is on everything that surrounds us. Secondly, God is manifested through the written word. The bible is loaded with insight into the history of God’s people and of the life of Christ and gives phenomenal insight into who our God is and what He has done for us and of the life to come. Thirdly; God manifested himself by sending His Son Jesus Christ to live as a man and to save mankind by dieing on the cross for our sins.

Finally, God manifests himself through His church. As Christians we are to emulate Christ and carry on the work that He has entrusted to us. Jesus’s public ministry started with a simple invitation: “Come follow me” His closing instructions to his disciples can be summarized in one word: “GO!!”. To claim we believe is not enough. The call of Jesus is one that demands action. Oh and by the way, if you follow Christ there may be some hardships along the way. You may be persecuted, ridiculed, laughed at, cursed, mocked, you may lose everything even your life. The Christian life comes at great risk and at significant cost. Jesus summarized it like this:

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it” (Luke 9:24)

He wants us to surrender our lives to him and follow him into the unknown. And if it means a life of suffering, hardship and disappointment it will be worth it because following Jesus Christ is more powerful and more fulfilling than living with everything in the world minus Him.

We live in a world full of hurt and hardship. It is all around us. For some it may be a broken relationship, or strained friendship. For others it may be health concerns, or an addiction, or guilt, or depression, or anger. Perhaps it is some unresolved conflict or something that we just can’t forgive. These are real issues and impact us all on a daily basis. For many these hardships are more than they can bear. The bible is very clear that we will face hardships but to keep our trust in God that His will will be done. We are to rejoice in our sufferings as is stated in Romans 5:3

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character; and character, hope.

I don’t know about you but sometimes I think my life is one big character building experience. It is quite understandable how difficult it is to give thanks and praise and even rejoice in the midst of our trials and sufferings.

But what about the flip side? Why is it so difficult for us to continually give thanks when things are actually relatively quite good. We are a very blessed people but somehow we take things for granted. We have created a religious culture in which – even though we are the most blessed society in the history of the planet – our best selling literature still focuses on how we can be even more blessed. As a matter of fact I wonder how many of us have become embittered with God, confused in our faith because God doesn’t come through the way we think He should. Perhaps the tragedy of our time is that such an overwhelming number of us who declare Jesus as Lord have become domesticated or “civilized”. We are convinced that God’s optimal desire for our lives is to insulate us in a spiritual bubble where we risk nothing, sacrifice nothing, lose nothing, worry about nothing. We are a civilized people desiring a life of endless comfort, security and indulgence. We expect God to come through for us and protect us and save us from disaster. His purpose is to ensure our safety, our convenience and our comfort. Well scripture tells us a different version. We are aliens and strangers in the world. We are in the world and not of the world. Mark 8 verses 34-36 says:

Then Jesus called the crowd to him along with the disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?

In light of this let us at all times and in all places give God thanks and praise for the bountiful blessings which He bestows upon us. Let us wake up every morning with an attitude of gratitude. It is amazing how your whole outlook on life can change. I know this to be true because of the recent events in my life.

I would like to share with you one of the toughest hardships that I have had to endure as well as the wonderful way in which I have been blessed through that difficult time. About 6 years ago I was driving home after work and I received a telephone call on my cell phone. It was my doctor who said that he received the results from a biopsy and that I need to come in to discuss the results. I told him that I will pull over to get out my appointment book so that we can book an appropriate appointment. The doctor replied that I should come right away with no delay. My heart started racing as I met with the doctor. He said, sorry Carl but the lesion that was removed was malignant melanoma and unfortunately we didn’t take enough of a margin to remove it all. I have arranged to have you go and see a head/neck specialist. Sorry to bear you this awful news. I was in utter shock. What does this mean. I had more questions than answers. By the time I went to see the specialist the cancer had already spread to the lymph nodes in my neck. The specialist said that I would have to endure quite a journey. Firstly, I would have to undergo a 12 hour operation where they will remove all or part of my nose depending on how much it had spread and they would have to do a neck dissection to remove the lymph nodes in my neck and then a plastic surgeon will fix you up. After the operation I would be given some time to recover and then I would be required to undergo radiation and chemo treatments. Oh and by the way we are giving you a 16% chance of overcoming this. Talk about a blow. I was in total shock. My life was in total disarray.

I have been a Christian all of my life and my head wouldn’t allow me to question God’s will. I was resisting the urge to feel sorry for myself and I tried very hard to be brave in face of this dilemma. The only thing on my mind was that soon I will be facing my maker and savior and I wasn’t prepared for that. I meditated on scripture and in my heart I wanted so badly for Jesus to look at me and say “Well done my good and faithful servant” but part of me was very ashamed of how I lived my life and I felt so unworthy to even be in his presence. I couldn’t help but think that perhaps I lived a life of insignificance. I thought of all of the missed opportunities to share God’s love, to tell my loved ones that I love them so much and am very proud of them, to forgive those that need forgiving, to pray for those who need prayer, to encourage those that need encouragement. I hung my head in humility and began to sob. I don’t want to be a goat.

Then something wonderful happened to me. God felt my sorrow and provided comfort. He did this through His church. On the weeks leading up to my operation Pastor Brad and you the congregation would pray for me and for my family. On the day that I went in for surgery I had to be admitted quite early in the morning I think around 5:00 am. As I was laying in pre-op with my wife by my side along comes Marilyn S. who at the time was the Church Parish Worker. She read me some scripture and prayed with us. The surgery went very well and I was discharged from the hospital within a few days. While I was recovering at home the woman of our LWML provided hot meals for my family so that it was easier for Ruth to care for me and the family. We never ate so good. When it was time for me to go for my treatments I was an outpatient and needed to go daily for 4 weeks for my intervenous treatment. People of our congregation volunteered to drive me to and from the hospital.

They picked me up from home, drove me there and would come inside to keep me company for the 1-2 hours that it took and then they drove me home. It was primarily the women of the congregation that did this which is kind of funny because the first week of treatments I was coming in with a different woman every day. The nurses were starting to wonder about me. I had to do some fancy explaining. During this whole time the church continued to pray. I would get letters of encouragement, the seniors would send me cards and pray for me. There was even one particular special person who took it upon herself to kind of adopt me as one of her own children. Mary L. to this day continues to encourage me, she prays for me, she emails me and has just taken it upon herself to share the love of Christ with me. I call her my adoptive mother. She always starts her emails with: Wie Geht’s mein Sohn? That is German for how’s it going my son. Mary I love you to bits and thank you for your continual support. It has been 6 years since I was first diagnosed and I am still here with you today. God isn’t finished with me yet. I relapsed this spring and have been undergoing some hard treatments but am still feeling fairly good. Throughout all of this you as a congregation have continued to pray, you have continued to give encouragement and have been so kind to me and my family. I have been so incredibly blessed by you and thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is through you that I have seen the face of God and now I am at peace with myself.

As I said earlier, there is allot of hurt an hardship in this world. As a manifestation of Christ the church must resist the urge to stay in neutral and continue to boldly proclaim Christ as Lord. We must continue to put our trust in God even during those days where nothing seems to make sense or when we can’t understand God’s will in our lives. I would like to close with an interesting metaphor: We all know that many bees are called swarms, ants are called colonies, whales are pods, fish are schools, cattle are herds, birds are flocks and lions are prides. But did you know that a group of flamingos are called flamboyants, that a group of owls are called a parliament or better yet that a group of buzzards waiting around to feast on leftovers is called a committee. But the most interesting one of all is the group designation for rhinos. You see rhinos can run 30 miles an hour which is fairly fast considering its size and weight. The other interesting thing is that rhinos can only see 30 feet in front of them. Just imagine a group of rhinos running forward at thirty miles an hour with no idea what is at thirty one feet. You would think that their inability to see far enough ahead would paralyze them to immobility. But with that horn pointing the way, rhinos run forward full steam ahead without apprehension. A group of rhinos are aptly called a crash of rhinos. This is what the church should be like. We should be an unstoppable force moving forward to advance the will of God. Who cares what is at thirty one feet ahead. The future is uncertain but in Christ we can move forward with confidence.

Amen

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