Matt Chandler - Awake to Beauty and Goodness

Well, if you have your Bibles, I would love for you to grab them. We’ll literally go line by line through that passage in our time together today. We are at the midway point of our winter series, which we have called «Awake and Alive.» The premise behind the series is that if we’re not careful, as Christians, we might find ourselves asleep to all that God has made available to us in Jesus Christ. As a secondary point, if you’re not a Christian, the invitation is to actually come into life and life to the full. We started out by talking about what this all means and how you can fall asleep. We discussed awakening to the gospel, then talked about waking up to courage, which is about a life of integrity, confession, and living in the light. Last week, we talked about waking up to the truth—the truth being ultimate reality, the truth being Jesus. Now, at this halfway point, I want to talk about waking up to beauty, truth, and goodness. To do that, here’s what I want to do: I want to give you a picture, then highlight a problem, and finally present God’s plan to solve the problem, moving us toward the picture. Are we good? You got me? Three points! We’re Southern Baptist; it’s in our bylaws, so I had to do it.

Now, Lauren and I have a good friend; her name’s Katie. This was actually easier for me in the morning service because she wasn’t present. She is the most bright-eyed, joyful human being we know—almost annoyingly so. However, she has had a hell of a decade; I mean, just a brutal wave after wave of challenges. When will it stop, God? Perhaps you can relate to that, or perhaps you can’t. It really started when she was 32; she contracted Lyme disease. I know how you get that in Missouri, but I’m not quite sure how you get that in Lantana. She came down with Lyme disease, and this was a brutal thing for a young, energetic former college athlete who now can’t really move and is so exhausted and stuck that she couldn’t even manage to get up and go upstairs to grab her two-year-old daughter at the time. She had to call her mom and say, «Mom, get over here; I can’t move off the couch.» Then, by the grace of God, the Lyme disease gave way only for her dad to unexpectedly go be with the Lord in 2017. He was the kind of dad who is like a cornerstone; he makes it all work. He just made everything better; he was a constant presence. The loss was sudden, brutal, and disorienting for the whole family. Right after that, in 2019, she had a severe battle with endometriosis, resulting in a hysterectomy. About six months after the hysterectomy, she wanted to get back in shape—that’s what most of us try to do; it’s what college athletes always try to do until they just give up altogether. She was supposed to wait three months, but she waited six. Then, while doing some light lunges, she felt a tinge in her hip, and that began what felt like years of suffering. In fact, it feels like years because we’re still kind of in it with this really horrible pain in her hip that took life from her in some significant ways. She was not able to go upstairs to cuddle with her girls, relegated to what should have been the most active and vibrant part of her life, merely a spectator in her family’s activities, like skiing, swimming, and all the things you do when you’re in your 30s and your kids are at the most vibrant period of their lives. Then, the pain got unbearable for Katie. We prayed and prayed and prayed. They tried physical therapy; it didn’t work, so they went into pain management. They turned up those pain meds so high that she was constantly in a haze and still in excruciating pain. She had to choose: do I want to be present in my life and deal with this pain, or do I just get stuck dealing with the pain? One thing that was so disorienting for all of us happened in this very room one afternoon when we prayed over Katie with tears. We asked that Jesus would heal her, and like that, all the pain vanished; it just went away for three days—no pain. We were freaking out, saying, «Oh my God, the Lord just healed Katie!» We were all excited for three days, bounding up the stairs, feeling great. But then, three days later, the pain returned. You might think, «Wait, what? That’s not nice, God.» But if I gave Katie the mic—and I won’t—she would tell you that those three days were the Lord moving toward her as a reminder: «I see you; I haven’t forgotten you, and I’ve kept every one of these tears.»