I wrote most of this Saturday evening, thinking I might include it in today’s sermon. But as you will see, it ended up being longer than a sermon could bear.
I have shared in recent weeks that some of our vendors are from India and are zealous about their faith. Zealousness doesn’t equal truth in religion, in politics, nor a high school student’s response on a Scott Emmon’s math exam. On Thursday I entered a distributor’s warehouse and I could sense that something was amiss. The owner and his immediate family were back in India seeing his extended family. While there his wife, who is about 40 years old, had a stroke and then a second stroke. She is in a coma in the ICU unit. Their family doesn’t know if she will live or die. I texted the owner and told him that I was told the news and that I was praying for his wife and for him. I got an almost immediate response from him: “Thank you, brother. Please pray.” That was from a Hindu. I headed to the next vendor who is a competitor of the first vendor. Two brothers own this business. One is a zealous Hindu. I rarely see him without the bindi (dot) on his forehead. The second brother I have never seen with any sign of the Hindu faith. The “non-practicing” brother comes out and I asked if they knew the other vendor and his wife’s situation. He tells me that his wife and her family are close and they know the situation. I told him that I was praying for her. A few weeks ago I shared in a blog that we had received some items from this second vendor for which we had not been charged because of a new software that they were using. Up to that point, I was the only customer who had told them of the software problem. I then explained that once again we had received items for which we had not been charged and had been charged for items which we had not received. I had in a grocery cart about $350 of items that we had received for which we had not been charged. At this point he becomes extremely agitated, not with me, but with his employees. He turns to me and says, “July, August, September, and now October that we have had this new system and you are the only customer who has shared this with us.” He then looks at one of his employees and says, “Look at what he received that he wasn’t charged for.” He asks me, “Was it last week?” I said, “No, last week I was at the Mayo Clinic.” He turns to me and asks, “Mayo Clinic?” I said, “Yes, Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.” At this point he knows it could be serious. “Why did you go to Mayo Clinic?” “I have been going there the last 18 months. I have had three cancers.” The tone of the conversation shifts dramatically. He says to me, “So the chemotherapy is working.” I said, “The chemotherapy and the hand of God.” This man then says to me, “I believe there is a God, but I don’t believe that He is involved in this world.” And then he paused and said, “Until I meet a man like you.” The implication was that if you’ve had three cancers and you are doing as well as you are, then there must be something to it. Kind of like Peter and John before the Sanhedrin. Luke writes in Acts 4: 14 But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. He then said to me, “I believe death will be better.” At this point I said to him, “You know I am a pastor and you know what I believe.” And I pulled out that verse that you are probably tired of hearing from me. You may have memorized it without intending to do so. I said, “There is a verse in the Bible that I live by. Yes, death will be better. The verse is: For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” I came back to the whole issue where we started. I said, “Heaven will be gain for me, but until then I must live a life that does the right thing. That’s why I tell you when mistakes are made in your favor.” I left their business that day with a different relationship with the man than I previously had. I invite you to pray with me for him. I have this crazy belief that has no Biblical proof text. I don’t think it happens in every believer’s life, but I believe it does for some of God’s saints. I believe that some folks God calls home when their death will bring more people to Jesus than the rest of their life will. Years ago those of us old enough to remember, remember how John Lindgren died. As a TV anchor we literally watched him fight cancer until Jesus called him home. And I believe his death brought more people to Jesus than if had he stayed in this world. I preached on Stephen this morning. It sure looks to me that Stephen would be an example of that possibility. The old saying that “the blood of the martyr is the seed of the church” isn’t just a trite saying. Because of Stephen’s death the Christians in Jerusalem were scattered to Judea and Samaria and eventually the uttermost parts of the earth. In some sense we are recipients of the impact of Stephen’s death. Teresa and I met with a dear saint yesterday afternoon with whom we have become close because she started reading the blogs. She encouraged me during a difficult time in my life. Recently, she has been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. She knew that I understood when I took her hand and prayed for her. Through God’s grace, I believe that one of the reasons that God has thus far allowed me to stay in this world is because of the impact that the blogs have had on some others. Maybe I’d better get back to writing more frequently. I’d still prefer that the gain doesn’t come anytime soon.
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Chuck Cooper
Pastor at Daybreak Community Church Archives
November 2024
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