How to Care for Sufferers (with Joni Eareckson Tada)

Joni Eareckson Tada

One of my favorite Puritans, he said, Christ cheaply manifests Himself in times of affliction, because then and mostly only then the soul clings most closely in faith to him.

Matt Smethurst

Welcome. Friends to the everyday pastor a podcast on the nuts and bolts of ministry from the gospel coalition. My name is Matt Smethurst and I’m Luke Duncan, and today we have a very special guest joining us, Johnny Erickson, tada. Johnny is the founder and CEO of Johnny and friends, an organization that provides Christian outreach in the disability community. Johnny and friends also provides practical support and spiritual help and even church training to families with special needs worldwide. Johnny is also the author of some which I just confirmed with her, some 30 books, including many best sellers, such as songs of suffering, the practice of the presence of Jesus, and her original autobiography, first published in 1976 titled Johnny. She and her husband Ken, live in California, and if you want more information on her wonderful ministry, you can go to johnnyanfriends.org, Johnny. Thanks so much for being with us today.

Joni Eareckson Tada

Oh, it’s so good to be with you friends and of course, all our listeners

Matt Smethurst

I mentioned before we started, when I was just praying for this conversation, that getting to interview you is a special privilege for LIG and me. You are one of our spiritual heroes and and we say that because of the way that you have so faithfully, let the strength of Christ shine even through your weakness. So thank you for your faithfulness and your enduring ministry for over five decades, and for listeners who may not be familiar with you or your ministry, can you just tell us a bit more about yourself and your story?

Joni Eareckson Tada

Well, it was back in 1967 I took a reckless dive in a shallow water I was just a month away from going to college and and ended up being a quadriplegic after that reckless dive. And I was despairing, depressed, angry at God, but thankfully, there were Christians praying. People often ask me, Johnny, what? What grabbed you? What gripped you up out of your depression, and I will say it was the faithful prayers of Christian friends and, of course, their loving support as well. So I’ll be in my wheelchair, living as a quadriplegic without use of my hands or my legs, coming up on 58 years soon. And I’m amazed by that fact, Matt and leg, I taped it over. What a miracle.

Matt Smethurst

One of the most profound things I’ve heard you say is that that the first thing you will do on resurrected legs is fall on grateful, glorified knees. And again, I’m just so moved to think about the way that the Lord has worked in you to enable you to speak in such a counter intuitive, counter cultural way of him. And that’s not to say it’s easy. In fact, today I re watched the little mini documentary crossway, put out a few years ago, and I would encourage listeners to look that up. You can find it on YouTube, songs of suffering, the Joni Eareckson Tada story. And there’s a rawness to that little documentary where you’re talking about how, you know, God uses suffering for good, but the suffering itself is not good. This is hard. And you were talking about how even the chronic pain that you face sometimes makes the quadriplegia seem like a walk in the park. So talk to us a little bit about the chronic pain struggles you’ve had and how you’re doing today?

Joni Eareckson Tada

Well, whether it’s due to scoliosis or other issues being 75 years old, I don’t know, but I started experiencing deep, chronic pain. Oh, my goodness, it’s been maybe 2530 years now that I’ve lived with serious pain, and it’s not been easy. Every morning I get up, gentlemen, and I, I really do not have the strength. Please know that I, I have to go to God urgently first thing when I wake up, I I have to say, God, I cannot do this one more day. It is so hard, but although I cannot do quadriplegia and pain, I can do all things through you, as you strengthen me. And I mean that. And so that’s how I have to wake up every morning. But it is the Christian way to wake up. It’s the best. First way to wake it’s the only way to wake up when you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you’re you’re intending to hoist your cross and carry it for the day.

Matt Smethurst

That’s beautiful. And just by the way, Johnny mentioned to this to us beforehand. We know many of you pastors listening know and love her, and don’t be alarmed if you hear a weakness in her voice or difficulty breathing. She’s not sick. It’s just that her lungs at her age are weakening and she’s adjusting to it, and you can continue to keep her in your prayers. Johnny, you have written and spoken eloquently about the topic of suffering for 50 years, and we want to help pastors today think about how to care for sufferers. Well, this is a perennial, unavoidable subject, not just in the, you know, yearly life of a pastor or the weekly life of a pastor, but the daily life of a pastor, because we all live and move and have our being, both ourselves and the sheep we serve in the rubble and wreckage of Eden in a world that is tragic. And as pastors, it can be difficult to know exactly how to care for different sufferers and different kinds of suffering, knowing which medicines to apply to which maladies, and that takes sensitivity and skill and experience. You’ve written about and spoken about this topic for so many decades. Are there things that you wish now you could tell your, say, 18 year old self, or even my 30 year old self? What have you learned over the years. Oh, my goodness.

Joni Eareckson Tada

Well, after my injury, after I came up out of that depression, I spoke of and got gripped by God’s word, I became fascinated with things like Romans five, rejoice in suffering. James one, welcome that trial as a friend. Romans 828, this is all going to fit together for good. I mean, I was thinking about all the good things that God could do through my suffering, how it would confront a rebellious spirit, expose resentment, purge bitterness, cultivate perseverance, mature character, make you sensitive to others who hurt. I kept thinking about how it would increase my love for others, and in fact, I was so bolstered by all these insights from the word back in 1978 I wrote a book about all of them, and it pretty much was a catalog, a listing of the 65 good reasons as to why God allows your suffering. And so I gave my manuscript to Elizabeth Elliott because I wanted her to provide a comment. After she read it, she wrote back to me and said, well, Johnny, this is quite nice, but it is a bit mechanistic, and I was crushed mechanistic. But over the years, I truly began to see what she meant, because I forgot all about Romans, 829, to be conformed to the image of Christ is to first love God more than you do your sin. I mean, how are we most like Jesus? Is it to be gentle, kind, sensitive, compassionate? No, those are all good things, but to be most like Jesus is to love God with all your heart and soul and might and strength and I, over time, realized that that my suffering was mainly being used and should be used to teach me to love Jesus Christ, to teach me to look at the cross, to understand the suffering that he went through, and to fall in love with him for it, yeah, and we’re told anyway, in John 17, that this is eternal life, right? That we might know Jesus Christ. I would just focus a little more on Jesus and less on putting all the puzzle pieces of my suffering together, you know, with all the the things that it can benefit you. Because sometimes our suffering is so horrid, so awful, that it feels like it outweighs the benefits. So it’s best just to make it all about Jesus.

Ligon Duncan

But you know, I think the note of your ministry to me, and I bet to many pastors that are listening over the years, has had a wonderful balance of there is a firm embrace of the greatness of God, the sovereignty of God. There’s a high view of God. It shows everywhere that you speak and write without in any way discounting or trying to paper over the hard thing. Things that that people experience in this life with platitudes. I bet every pastor listening today has had someone experience significant suffering and walk away from God. And so you not only represent hope in our hearts, because every pastor wants you know, we want our people to walk with God. We want we want our people to trust him in the worst situations of life. And so here’s Johnny, who could have been bitter about this and just walked away from God, who not only walks with God, but has a high view of God and a high view of his goodness as well as his sovereignty. Without making that the panacea that makes everything all rosy. And, you know, little little Disney characters floating around the screen and that sort of thing, you can really face the hard things with realism and yet trust a good and sovereign God. And that mean that’s ministered to my soul. I bet it’s ministered to every pastor listening today, and I hope that for folks that aren’t pastors that are listening today, that that will push them to a resource that will help them in that very kind of circumstance in their lives.

Joni Eareckson Tada

That’s right, and you know, like, I don’t pretend to know a lot. I don’t have a degree from seminary. I would say that a good theology of suffering must have an exalted view of God, and my suffering is lessened because I believe that God is sovereign. Oh, if you weren’t sovereign, I’d be panicking, right? But to know that every little measure, every ounce of pain has been has been metered out in such a way as to help my soul, not harm it.

Ligon Duncan

Amen. And again, it’s that note in your in your testimony, in your teaching, in your writing comes out, and again, you apply it so well, because that truth is an incredible bomb, but it doesn’t fix everything, and you do such a wonderful job of emphasizing both of those things so that it keeps the Truth precious, like we all know people who resent that truth because it’s been presented to them as if it fixes their suffering so that they don’t hurt anymore. And you’re a good model for us and how to apply that to our own people in our own lives when we’re wrestling with the very same thing. And

Joni Eareckson Tada

I think a good theology of suffering must always be really practical. I think that opens people’s hearts when suffering can suffering, people can go to their church leaders and know that they’re going to receive a hands on helping theology, as well as a solid view of God’s sovereignty. And so that’s what we’re all about here at Joni and Friends. We’re we’re all about lifting up the name of the Lord Jesus, giving that gospel once delivered to the saints, but also addressing the very practical, the very physical needs.

Ligon Duncan

Well, speaking of practical, give us a little bit of help on how pastors can be a help to people in their congregation dealing with chronic pain. I mean, I like Matt, I watched the same little cross way video just about an hour ago, and I was that that hit me, because I knew your story, and I knew what that had meant for you, and I’ve known a little bit about some of the specific physical sufferings, whether it’s cancer or whether it’s broken bones or things like that. Through the years, from time to time, I’ve prayed for those things as I became aware of them, but I would not have been aware of the chronic pain that you mentioned, if I hadn’t just looked at that video again and I that was an issue, I’m not sure, as a young man, that I had ever thought of in my life, until I went off to Edinburgh to do my doctoral work. And a dear, wonderful pastor’s wife named Irene Howitt suffered from chronic pain. She had a neurological problem that meant that she could never sleep more than two hours a night, and she she was in tremendous pain, you know, all her waking hours. And she wrote a little book called pain my companion, I had never thought of that issue in my life. So talk to pastors for a second. There are people out in our congregations that are dealing with chronic pain, what do we need to know to be better pastors to them? Johnny,

Joni Eareckson Tada

oh, let’s see. Well, do not assume that every suffering person that is a individual with chronic pain is asking why with a. Searching heart, they might be asking why with a clenched fist. And I think there is a time when a person is dealing with great pain, there’s a time when they really aren’t looking for answers. They’re looking for one, but they don’t know what it is, and so you can’t give them answers that you would, let’s say, you know, talk on a blackboard, all academic and all static and all inert, right?

Matt Smethurst

I like even say mechanistic, mechanistic,

Joni Eareckson Tada

right? Elizabeth Elliot was say that, Elizabeth, you know, I once read a great illustration. Imagine a little boy up on the top of this hill on a bicycle, and his daddy is watching proudly when a little boy races down the hill and he gets to the bottom, turns his bike, the front tire, skids out on the gravel. He falls to the ground, hits the asphalt, blood everywhere, and his daddy comes running. And a little boy is holding his bloody knee and crying, why daddy? And how cruel if that daddy walked up to him, folded his arms and said, Well, son, let me. Let me give you the answer to what, what? What’s happened here. First, watch your trajectory of your turn at the bottom of the hill. Be careful of your velocity when you’re on your bike. Be observant. Grab it. But these are all good answers to the question, why? But that’s not what that little boy wants. He wants his daddy to reach down and pick him up and pat him on the back and say, oh, there, sweetheart, daddy’s here. It’s okay, pat, pat on the back. Everything’s going to be okay. And I think that’s what people like me in pain want to hear. We want to hear that God is in the center of our suffering, and God cares. He’s a compassionate daddy. And praise God for His word, because God just like a good daddy, like that, like that Daddy that picked up that little boy and patted him on the back. Daddy doesn’t give answers, Abba Father. Daddy gives us himself, and nowhere does he give himself more beautifully, more tenderly, yet more horrifically and terribly than on the cross of his son. And so I always like to talk about that. I talk about Jesus. I was just in a prayer circle yesterday with a group of people who did not know Christ, but I enjoined them to pray with me. And as I was praying, I’m just talking about Jesus. Jesus, I know you hate suffering. You came here, you died so that one day it would be destroyed. And I know your heart’s broken for this broken world. And I’m talking this way in the prayer, and I do believe, I trust, I hope, that by the time we finished praying, those people had a sweeter understanding of the heart of God, the heart of Jesus Christ. So I just gently point people to Jesus, very gently. That

Matt Smethurst

reminds me of something we’ve referenced on previous episodes, how, at the end of the long saga that is the book of Job, he doesn’t get the answer to the question why, but he’s given something better, and that’s not the why, but the who, amen, it sounds like maybe that, in a sense, is is a bit of the journey the Lord’s brought You on over the decades to be satisfied and content with the who, even if you can’t understand all of the whys, absolutely

Joni Eareckson Tada

it was, I think was Richard Sibbes. He’s one of my favorite Puritans. He said Christ chiefly manifests Himself in times of affliction, because then, and mostly only then the soul clings most closely in faith to him, and so there’s a wonderful opportunity for us to glorify God, as our affliction drives us to him. I talked earlier about being pushed into the breast of Jesus and and when Christ manifests Himself to you through affliction, you’ve got a union. You possess an understanding of each other. It’s like, it’s like we’re always so centered on Christ as high priest, identifying with us, the afflicted. Well, that’s great. Of course, he identifies with us in our temptations. He’s been tempted and tested in every weakness as we are. But how wonderful when we get a chance to identify with him, and that’s what enormous suffering does it? It makes you identify with him so that you understand. And him, his weaknesses, his struggles, you get to know the Son of Man, and that’s the union in suffering which brings such profound joy to know Christ that way.

Matt Smethurst

Yeah, and that just makes me think about what we encounter in the New Testament and even in early Christian writing that is so different than our experience, we are so often quick to focus on how Christ shares in our suffering, when the focus there was often how we share in his even just hearing you talk in the last couple of minutes, Johnny has helped me understand better. Something you once said that I hold dear. You said, God sometimes permits what he hates to accomplish what he loves. And I’ve always thought of that as a great doctrinal statement, he’ll permit things he hates to accomplish what he loves, namely his grand plan of salvation working through history. And that’s true, but it’s even more concrete than that. As you’re talking about how Jesus has drawn you to himself, and how he’s drawn near to you in intimate ways that you couldn’t know him apart from your suffering, it helps me realize, yeah, he’s permitted things that he hates to accomplish what he loves, namely, having more of you and letting you have more of him. And that, that sweet companionship, that

Joni Eareckson Tada

first point you made, Matt, is so important. It reminds me of what Joseph said to his wicked brothers who sold him into slavery. He said, you may have intended it for evil, but God intended it for good, and I love the next verse, For the saving of many lives, even my own disability, all this affliction that God has given me. It is for the saving of many lives and man, that’s something I want to steward. Well, there are 3.1 billion people with disabilities the world, most of whom do not know Jesus Christ. And I’m going to squeeze every ounce of ministry effort that I can out of this body of mine to reach those people for Jesus, so many of them unreached in back bedrooms, hidden away, locked in garages. We’re going to find those people and tell them about Jesus, and that’s really what’s on God’s heart, that we know him and love him, and then that we avail ourselves to be a vessel for the success of the gospel.

Matt Smethurst

Man, yeah, Johnny, what are some small but meaningful ways that pastors can show up for people with disabilities, chronic pain, those suffering loss?

Joni Eareckson Tada

Well, there is a culture of need that encircles everyone who suffers. I mean, even James, chapter two, verse 16, says, if one of you says to those who are naked or hungry, Go in peace, keep born, be well fed, but does nothing about the physical need, what good is that? So I think pastors, because they are men of great influence in their congregations, pastors can encourage the church to do stuff, as it were, on behalf of those who suffer, whether it’s mobilizing a small group to construct a ramp for a wheelchair user or casting a vision to train church volunteers to provide two hours of daycare for you know a couple of mothers in the congregation who have special needs children. There are all kinds of ways that that pastors can, as I said, influence, mobilize, push their congregation into a communication into into really moving into action. So pastors aren’t called to necessarily get in the dirt, the soil of of someone’s pain, but they they can mobilize their churches to treat that soil, to hone that soil, to water it, feed it, nurture it. But because pastors are men of influence, they can really do a great deal to help a congregation.

Matt Smethurst

And what are some ways that pastors can truly show up for people and comfort them with the comfort that God Himself provides, rather than just trying to fix the problem and make someone feel like that they’re just a problem to be fixed or a case to be solved.

Joni Eareckson Tada

I have a quote that I love about comfort. Uh, written by Pastor Jr Miller, and what a remarkable man. He once wrote that we comfort others best when we make them stronger to endure, when we put courage into their hearts, when we enable them to pass through their sorrow, victoriously. That’s the way Christ comforts. He doesn’t merely sit down beside someone who’s in great pain and empathize, but he enters into their experience. He does sympathize with them, but it is so that he might make them stronger to endure and and that’s why I think it’s great that pastors preach well on suffering and often on suffering, because so many people in their congregations are suffering, and many of those people, if not most of them, will never get fixed. Those who are broken, they won’t get better. I would encourage pastors don’t approach people for whom their suffering has a relief or Endor sight with a 12 step recovery program. Here are the ABCs of what you need to do. I think a much better mindset insists when there’s no end to a family suffering, no relief, affliction? Yeah, affliction may be lasting, but it’s not everlasting. And I think that sermons on suffering, sermons about eternity, how we can, how we can prepare for eternity, helping people get on the heights of heaven and look back on Earth. You know? What? What can I do in my hardship? How can I partner with God in my own sanctification? How? How can I allow him to use this suffering to stretch my soul’s capacity and increase my eternal escape, not diminish it with complaining or fear or worry or anxiety, but it, but increase it. And those are, those are healthy sermons to preach from the pulpit. You pastors really do get their parishioners working for the Kingdom when they can preach solid, rich, rugged, robust sermons about both suffering and the doctrine of heaven.

Ligon Duncan

I know that Matt wants to talk some more about how we preach into this situation, but something you just said was super helpful to me, and that is when we’re ministering to people, not just to empathize, but actually to give them some direction, so that they’re not just passive in relation to their suffering, that they’re active and that they can be strengthened and do something with it. That’s very helpful for me to hear. Give me some counsel about prayer. There are probably some mistakes we can even make in prayer with people that are going through suffering and pain and such. Do you have counsel for us in terms of how pastors can approach prayer with people that are suffering?

Joni Eareckson Tada

I think that it’s important for someone who’s truly suffering, whether it is a church member who has received a diagnosis of cancer, or a husband has left a family, or somebody gets a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. I I think that it’s important that the pastor mobilize people to pray specifically and committedly. I don’t want to sound judgmental here, but often, when I’m in church prayer meetings, you’re going to hear scores of requests for upcoming surgeries, or maybe some son in law has lost his job and needs a new job. Someone has cancer. Please pray that Jessica’s cold gets better pay for safety on our vacation. But it’s rarely. It’s rarely that we hear, Oh, God, may Bob surgery with all that pain and discomfort drive him deeper into your Word, remind him how to pray for those who are suffering around him, help him to be a solid witness to the medical staff while he’s in the hospital. Yeah, yeah, that’s the way we should pray. And I think if pastors can just preach some good sermons on praying with the word praying with an eternal perspective in mind, turn every physical need into a spiritual one. I’m always telling people that my model for doing this kind of prayer is 20% on the physical need and 80% on the spiritual needs. You know, the sort of things you pray for that are really going to last for eternity, courage, perseverance, endurance, all the fruits of the Spirit, etc.

Matt Smethurst

Wow. Yeah, it’s, it’s like that image, which we get from, from the Bible, from places like Isaiah, 43 Free of walking through the flames. You know suffering is a furnace that’ll either burn you to a crisp or burn away the dross and enable you to emerge like gold First Peter one. But the one thing the furnace of suffering won’t do is leave you the same so knowing that, yes, ultimately, God is sovereign over who makes it through the furnace and how, what are things though, that a sufferer can do to steward their sorrows, to steward their pain in a way that’s going to facilitate growth.

Joni Eareckson Tada

I wish I had a quick answer for that. It took me quite a while to finally understand that my suffering was not all about me. I I think what, what helped me is Second Corinthians, Chapter Four is one of my favorite passages, where it says we know that the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead, and we also will be raised with Jesus. Therefore, do not lose heart. Never lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly. We’re being renewed day by day for our light and momentary afflictions, our achieving for us and eternal glory that far outweighs them all. Here’s the part where, this is where supper should concentrate on, fix your eyes on Jesus, not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. That is a good prescription to swallow every day for those who hurt. I often tell people with disabilities, and I counsel a lot of people who are in far more dire straits than I am quadriplegics who can’t shrug their shoulders or or move their forearms. I mean, I don’t have use of my hands, but I I talk to people who can barely even move their head, or people who have ALS who are going to die in a matter of months. And I, I always give them that Bible verse, fix your eyes on Jesus and do the sorts of things with what little time you have left to invest in eternity, and that means not only in your own soul, but in the souls of the people that God has put in your sphere of influence. You know, do something for them. What does Peter say? A day is as 1000 years and 1000 years or as a day. We often look at the 1000 years or as a day part, but really do we see a day is as 1000 years? Could this possibly mean that God gives us each day, each 24 hour slice of time in which to invest in 1000 years worth of eternity. That’s a vigorous, manly way to look at your day, that you have a chance to invest in 10,000 years of eternity over the next 10 days. So you know, put your suffering to good use. Suffer well, don’t complain. The Bible says Philippians two, verse four, do everything without grumbling and complaining. Can we do that? Yes, I think we can, and we should, because the Bible says we’re able to do it, so just start doing it and call on His grace to help you. Just doing something simple like that, if one is suffering, will take a person miles down the road towards spiritual maturity. And if you

Matt Smethurst

want to talk about being a compelling witness to medical staff and other unbelievers who are suffering. Notice Paul goes from saying, do everything without grumbling or arguing, to in the matter of a breath, saying, you know, so that you may be blameless and pure children of God without fault in a depraved and crooked generation in which you shine like stars in the sky. Here’s what is so striking to me about that logic that I think we often miss. How common is complaining, how pervasive is grumbling. Paul says, not doing it will make you shine like a star in the universe.

Joni Eareckson Tada

Yeah, exactly, shining like a star in a dark universe. I encourage pastors to nudge the people in their congregations who are going into the hospital not to think of as a detour. But here’s part of your main highway. You got a new witness field over the next, what, six or seven days and. You’re going to have to be in the hospital that long, and it’s what I do. I was in the hospital not long ago with double pneumonia, and at 4am when I’m being poked for blood, I say to the woman, You remind me of Jesus, she kind of looks at me and smiles. I say, you know in Matthew chapter 20, verse 28 I think it is. He said, I came not to be served, but to serve. I just look at you, serving me, helping me. It makes you a lot like Jesus and things like that. Just telling your nurses, do you have children? May I pray for them? I mean, there are all kinds of ways we can just spread the light of the glory of the gospel of God’s grace through the face of Jesus Christ. So many ways we can do that.

Matt Smethurst

That’s good. It’s so easy when we’re talking about suffering, especially for those who, relatively speaking, haven’t suffered much. So I’m thinking of pastors who want to help those in the throes of pain, but might be tempted to resort to sentimental platitudes or just kind of popular cliches, in other words, to give cheap hope rather than real hope. What advice would you just commend to pastors for giving the real thing?

Joni Eareckson Tada

Well, do your best to rid your language of cliches and trite phrases. I mean, we dare not make hope cheap, right? And perhaps this is why those who suffer identify mostly when we talk about Christ and His suffering, how he was ripped to shreds and impaled on a cross and left hanging like a piece of slaughtered, bloodied meat, our hope is connected with Christ’s sacrifice, So we must never attach a cheap price to it. We have to remind people, it took hell for Christ to win you heaven. And I’m sorry to keep repeating this, but it really is all about Jesus. So I know people, many pastors, feel awkward as to know what to say, how to say it. But I think a good thing for pastors to do is is just ask, please help me here, because I really want to understand, shall I pull up a chair next to you here in this wheelchair so that we can speak eye to eye, or is it okay for me to stand? I honestly want to know. I mean, a question like that conveys empathy, and it puts that person who happens to be in the wheelchair in a teaching level. You have ascribed dignity to that individual who’s going through some hardship, and always feel free to ask questions or talk with their family members. Ask how they believe the church might best serve them during this time. What are their needs or their problems? Help us remove barriers? What can we do? Remember, my pastor did this. He came to my hospital and he held my hand. Somebody must have told him that I couldn’t feel in my hands. So he put, he grasped my hand with both hands, and he put it under his chin, kind of like resting his chin on my hand, like you know. And he said, Johnny, what? What can we do? How can I best help you? And here’s the man who, about a week later, came back to the hospital with his with his bag lunch and a book of poetry. And, you know, he sat next to my bed and read to me poetry, and it was wonderful. I loved it. I mean, I was still going through depression and anger, and I don’t know what God’s doing in my life. So he was wise enough to bring a book of poetry, but he won the right to be heard, didn’t he by doing that? And so there’s all kinds of ways that that pastors can Project Hope, but of course, in the pulpit, that’s the best place talk about hope. How to be joyful in hope. What is hope? And of course, our hope is realized, but we shall be with our Savior, and there will be no more suffering anymore. And that a great, great promise

Matt Smethurst

is there a particular sermon that stands out to you that you’ve heard that ministered to you in the moment and helped you for a season, or maybe just something from a sermon. You know, John Piper has said, it’s not books that change lives, it’s paragraphs, so just a statement that the Lord has used from a pastor to help you

Joni Eareckson Tada

endure. You mentioned it earlier. Matt God permits what he. Eight to accomplish that which he loves. Those are just 10 words, but Oh, my goodness, God used them to jerk my life right side up, and now I suddenly saw myself in some grand eternal scheme of God. What is it that he loves, and how is God going to use his wheelchair to do something that he really loved? So I think that was one of the best sermons. I remember when my sister trained a couple of my high school girlfriends how to give me a bed bath, how to exercise my legs, how to do my toileting routine so that she could have a weekend off when they would put me to bed, help me in bed. We got out the sermon series of Charles Spurgeon, his metropolitan tabernacle sermons, and his best one that the girls often asked for us to read again and again was his sermon, THE GREAT AMEN. Now every promise in God’s word, every single one finds its yes and amen in Jesus Christ and again, Spurgeon, vigorous preaching on important doctrines. And I think that’s something that not just pastors of this day, but all of us should benefit from.

Ligon Duncan

And a man who understood depression and himself, yeah,

Matt Smethurst

Johnny, what are some ways that the church can better integrate those with disabilities or chronic illnesses into the full life of the body as contributors, not not just recipients, because I imagine it is easy at times to just feel like someone that people have pity for, maybe someone people go out of their way to kind of say hello to, but to be this like special case, not someone who actually has things to offer a church.

Joni Eareckson Tada

Well, I don’t believe Christ ever envisioned picture perfect churches all neat and tidy. I think he and vision Messy Churches where people are upfront about their needs, all their needs, and not embarrassed to share their sins and where they might need prayer and someone to walk beside them. So I would be so bold as to say that pastors and church leaders can and should require significant service from their congregants. I mean, like I said earlier, we’re told in Matthew chapter 20, verse 28 that Jesus Christ came not to be served, but to serve. And when we are encouraged to be like Christ, what tops the list is to to love God, turn away from sin and serve others. And gentlemen, the days are short and times are evil, and Christians can’t be spectators sitting in the sanctuary. So I believe that a courageous preaching on the subject of service, because service gets everybody involved. And how many of us actually sacrifice for each other, but you’re not really serving according to the Lord Jesus, unless it costs you something. And when you come alongside, let’s say, a family who’s got a maybe a child with a disability or functioning autism, the church will have to practice Christianity with its leaves rolled up. It really will. How do we meet this woman’s needs? It’s going to take, like, 15 of us, since her husband left and she’s got this child to talk to them.

Ligon Duncan

I think we all need to be ready to give ourselves away. But just as you said that there are certain types of service that you are offering to Matt and me today that because of our experience, we could not offer to another, and what a blessing that is, God has put people like that in every single congregation who have things to give to one. I’ve I lost count of the number of people that experience suicide in their families in my congregation early on, and those members who have experienced that in their life, with children, with mates, they have things to give my congregation and to one another that I can’t give out of my experience, thank God they give it. I wouldn’t even understand some of the things that I at least know now because of their experiences and their willingness to use that in service to one another. So, yes, absolutely, all of us have something to give, and all of us need what everybody else has to offer,

Joni Eareckson Tada

right? I’m an encourager. That’s my that’s my gift. I can encourage people at least I can’t scrub their floors. Or hammer a ramp into their front door. But I can encourage people, even if we are elderly or quadriplegics, there’s a place for us to serve Johnny.

Ligon Duncan

Sometimes pastors are afraid that they’ll say the wrong thing that you know they don’t they don’t feel equipped or experienced enough to say the right thing in some circumstances, and talking to people in their congregations that are enduring long term suffering or disability in any words of encouragement from you to them, how should they act in that kind of a context?

Joni Eareckson Tada

Well, that’s a good one. You know, sometimes when a person is is is struggling through their their own, get their own. Gethsemane. Sometimes you, you you can’t give aid, and you can’t even say the right thing. There are times when, when a loved one who is struggling is battling alone, but you can hold, hold on to their lips a cup filled out of your own heart, your own suffering. You know, a love war Second Corinthians says we can comfort those in any trial. I think that word any is really important there, because sometimes we think, Oh, I’m not a I’ve never endured cancer. I I wouldn’t know what to say, or, Oh, she’s in a wheelchair. I just feel awkward about people in wheelchairs. Or, you know that that person has dementia, they’re elderly and not doing so great. So I think I’ll spend my time with someone who might understand better what I’m trying to we all have reasons and excuses, but we can impart our own struggles to that individual and share with them in any trial, any trial. And I think the best teacher is always the Lord Jesus. Where is it? Does it say in Isaiah, I will I wake in the morning to the Sovereign Lord who hears me and gives me an instructor tongue the word that will sustain the weary. I love it because it’s God who will teach you and instruct your tongue as to what you should say to encourage the weary. Pray about those very struggles that you might have before you go visit someone in a hospital.

Matt Smethurst

Johnny, something you said earlier, you talked about giving ourselves in a way that really makes us feel it like true service is going to come at a cost, and it reminded me of a distinction I heard from Jonathan Lehman. He distinguished between the phrase we often use giving of ourselves versus giving ourselves. When we merely give of ourselves, we’re giving something we possess, like maybe some of our wisdom or some of our joy or some of our strength. But of course, when we do that, we’re not really losing anything. In fact, we might even be getting praise for giving of ourselves, but Paul says that it’s possible to even give away all you have, all your possessions, even your body, to the flames, but to lack love and therefore have nothing. And so what, what Jonathan points out is that when we give ourselves to others, we’re not just giving something we have. We’re giving who we are, and your comments, even in this conversation, are freshly instructive to me and challenging to me, not just to preach that way, because, I’ll be honest, that’s easy to preach, but to but to live that way, and example the self giving love of Jesus Christ for those he’s entrusted to my care. You also mentioned the days are evil, which made me think, you know, there’s a whole dynamic here we have not touched on, and that is the presence of the evil one Satan has the gift of discouragement. And so how, over the course of your life, have you sought to not be unaware of the devil’s schemes? Have you? Have you sought to fight against his attacks? Well,

Joni Eareckson Tada

Matt, you used that word discouragement, and I think that is Satan’s prime and most effective tool against those who suffer. It’s his sharp, shiny instrument, and boy, he uses it, uses it well. And I think that Satan looks at, looks at people who are suffering with. Chronic illnesses or long term pain or a disability. He thinks that’s his realm. He thinks that suffering and affliction is his realm because that’s his last stronghold. It says it’s his last place to garner lots of ammunition to fire at God. How can you be good God, if you would allow this child to be born with such a horrible disability, you’re not good. Look at what you did to a 17 year old girl, broke her neck, put her in a wheelchair, gave her cancer, chronic pain. You are not a good guy. So I think that’s his his talk track to people, and that’s what he wants them to think, that God is not good. And I think people who suffer suffer, need to realize that we’ve got a got a target on our back. We’re in, we’re in Satan’s cross hairs, because he knows what a witness, according to Ephesians three verse 10, look that up, LIG and you can, you can, you can share it in a minute. Ephesians 310 he knows that when we respond and grab hold of the grace He offers, that we are a shining testimony against that lie. Like if you have that verse, read it would you so

Ligon Duncan

that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Well,

Joni Eareckson Tada

you could preach 10 sermons on that verse, because basically what it’s saying is that now, through the church that is you and me and those in our congregation, God is going to use us to teach the rulers in the heavenly realms, both Angels and Demons, how great he is. Our lives are going to be like a blackboard on which he chalks powerful lessons about his grace to sustain. Just look at my Johnny over there. Just look at my Bob, my Julie. Look how they are sustaining and enjoying my will and rejoicing and suffering, all because I have given them the grace. What a wonderful thing to be afflicted, and yet the most powerful forces in the universe or waging war over you. And you have the choice every single morning when you get up to decide whose side you want to be on. You know, there’s no middle ground. You can’t you can’t walk the fence. You’re either grumbling and complaining and proving Satan’s point, or you are grabbing hold the grace God offers, and say, I’m going to trust him. I know my Lord is good, if he died for me, that proves his intentions and his intentions are good. Oh, the bird, what does that bring up the water till God’s glory, and then he’s out there with us, chalk on the blackboard teaching Angels and Demons. Look at that. Look what this girl is doing because of my goodness toward her. That’s a good picture to paint for those who suffer and are thinking that no one’s listening, no one cares. A great many unseen beings are on tiptoe waiting to see how we will respond tomorrow morning when we get up. Wow,

Matt Smethurst

you’ve sounded the note of God’s sovereignty and God’s goodness. And obviously we need we need both. And I think that for the kinds of pastors listening to this podcast, a TGC podcast. It’s probably an audience that has, in general, a very high soaring view of God’s sovereignty. But if we don’t also have a high soaring view of his goodness, we don’t have a high view of God. And so for the pastor, we actually did an episode with Garrett Kell, a pastor in Northern Virginia, on when the pastor’s family suffers, and one of the things he said, having reflected on the hardest year of their family’s life, in a number of ways, is that God is good. I in my brief tenure as a pastor, I’ve discovered that I think people grow disillusioned, even if they have that high view of God’s sovereignty, if they don’t trust in their hearts that he’s also kind and good. How? How have you grown to believe the goodness of God?

Joni Eareckson Tada

I will go back to the Lord Jesus. We would never know that God is good unless we took a long, hard look at the cross. The cross is like a rose, and you keep peeling back the layers the petals, and it gets sweeter and more intricate and more beautiful and more the more you peel. Back the layers of the mercy of God in saving wretched sinners such as ourselves, then you see his goodness displayed like like nowhere else. And so that’s why I think all of us should, should follow the battle scarred veteran, the Apostle Paul who wrote, join with me in suffering, join with me and endure hardship like a good soldier of Jesus Christ. And I would just say to pastors who might doubt the goodness of God, join with me in suffering like a good soldier for the sake of Jesus Christ. Then take a long, hard look at all the love of God displayed at Calvary, Mercy there and Grace was free pardon enough for me and you. Oh, i The older I get in the Lord, the more I look to the cross of Christ, to what Jesus did there, and what was happening there. Oh, my goodness, even there on the cross, what is he doing? He’s serving. We talked about service earlier, and how, you know, congregants must be urged, required to serve. Well, look at Jesus as an example. There he is on the cross. He’s serving. He’s ministering to the thief next to him, and he’s He’s forgiving the soldiers and and he’s counseling his best friend how to take care of his mother to the very end. He’s doing it, and all the joy that we get when we follow in his bloody footsteps,

Matt Smethurst

amen, and you just quoted some lyrics from a hymn. What has been the role of hymns? Oh, everything carrying you along. Talk, talk a moment about that. Oh, you

Joni Eareckson Tada

know what I was thinking this morning. I could go home today. Glad day, glad day, then I would see my friend suffering and troubles would end if I should go home today, glad day. Glad day. Is it the crowning day I’ll live for today, nor anxious be okay. Then it goes on. I won’t sing the rest. But that’s really not a hymn of my theological framework. I think that’s maybe even a gospel song from the 30s. I have no idea, but I love every kind of gospel song worship chorus of the doctrine is solid and, of course, good hymns. I use them when my pain is so great I can’t put two words together in a sentence. You know, when I survey the wondrous cross and the prince of glory there who died all my riches gain, I count but lot all kinds of hymns that are and that end up being prayers, and that’s what I need. So

Matt Smethurst

I have to ask, what are one or two songs you want sung at your funeral?

Joni Eareckson Tada

Oh, Thine be the glory risen, conquering Sun endless is the victory thou or death has won? I love that I’ve asked Laura story if she would please come and sing blessings, you know, because what if your blessings come through raindrops? What if your healing comes through tears? What if it takes 1000 sleepless nights to know that God is near, and what if trials of your life are the or your mercies in disguise at my funeral, I want hymns that have rich words and lots of robust doctrine.

Matt Smethurst

Well, Johnny, we could keep talking with you all day long, but we want to be respectful of your time. We want to thank you so much for the way you’ve ministered to us and even in this conversation to so many pastors listening in league. Will you just close by thanking God for Johnny’s life and ministry and praying for her hopefully in the many more years? Well,

Ligon Duncan

we pray for our listeners too. Leg, absolutely, absolutely. Let’s pray, Heavenly Father, thank You for the edifying words that have been shared by your servant today. Thank you for saving Johnny. Thank you for drawing her near to Christ. Thank you for making her more like Jesus. Thank you for making her an emissary for him and an advocate for those that we might overlook and not understand and Thank. You for the way she’s helped pastors be better pastors by drawing our attention to particular struggles that the sheep have in your church. And we do pray for all of our listeners. Lord, no doubt there are people listening to us today that understand experientially the things about which Johnny has spoken, and we pray your that you would be near them. We pray that they would know your presence even in their deepest darkest moments. We pray that they would know that you will never let them go, and that around and underneath are the everlasting arms, and that one day there will be a day of freedom and liberation and victory, and the Savior who has cared for them all the days of their life will again serve them at the marriage supper of the Lamb and begin a feast that will never end. We pray heavenly father that pastors would be encouraged today we would be more faithful to minister like our Savior and we thank You, Lord that we have a Savior who we don’t have to sit down and explain suffering to. He can sit us all down and explain suffering in depths that we could not even begin to understand. Thank you, Lord that we have a Savior who understands absolutely everything that his people are going through, and he not only sympathizes with us and empathizes with us, but one day, he is going to vanquish all death, all suffering, all pain by the might of his power, and liberate us To the glorious freedom of the sons of God forever, we ask these prayers and give you thanks in Jesus name,

Joni Eareckson Tada

amen. Amen. Leg, if you don’t mind. I know that some of our listening friends might be wondering, well, how do I get my church involved in embracing the people with disabilities or those with chronic pain that I’ve talked about today. And our church equips and trains churches all across across the world. And I would invite pastors to visit WWW dot Johnny and friends.org/church, and again, that’s Jay and I, Johnny. My daddy wanted a boy, Johnny and friends.org.

Ligon Duncan

Thank you for mentioning that, Johnny. I meant to mention that. In fact, I just looked up the link for Johnny and friends here in Mississippi, because I’ve had so many members of my congregation that have been a part of Johnny and friends in Mississippi, and I know other congregations in the area as well pastors. That’s a great resource if you’re looking to figure out how your church and how you can minister to folks better.

Matt Smethurst

Thank you so much for being with us, Johnny. We admire you and love you very much. Thank you listeners for tuning in to this episode of the everyday pastor. We hope it’s been as encouraging to you as it has been to us. Please share it with a friend, because this is a topic that every pastor and every human in a fallen world faces. We hope you’ll find fresh joy in the work of ministry.