The Doctor Gave My Wife 2 Years To Live | Unshakeable Faith

Apparently I have a radio voice. Unfortunately I have the radio looks to go with it.

But you know what, it's it's great to be with you. The title this week is Unshakeable. Yeah. We're gonna be talking about being unshakeable. Love the song We're gonna Trust in God Alone. He's my firm foundation and just. I love that slide over there. It, you could, there's a lot you could take out of that, but there's a guy that's been shaken and he's on the floor.

And he's got the anchor and he's trying to find the anchor and he's trying to get back up. And a lot of us know how that feels in life. We're all just trying to get back up sometimes. And so unshakeable and I've been really looking forward to sharing this message with you. Last week pastor I was gonna say Pastor Pauline, she'd probably accept that Pauline had a wonderful message about faith.

And the type of faith that is required to be productive in our Christian life. And this week I am gonna be talking about being unshakeable. And the big idea is that when everything shakes what's built on God stands firm. What you build your life on determines. What survives the shaking, and I have learned that when life shakes you, it will reveal who you are.

And what you are built on. And so I'm gonna share a story about Jen and I. By the way, I have banished Jen today to another church. Out you go. Because she has a spiritual gift of interrupting me. And that's been going on for 43 years Now, if you're online, Jenna's, my wife and she is going to put the bony finger up when she hears these comments, and that's how you know she's upset.

Yeah, so she's she's off. I'm free to talk about her and that's what I'm gonna be doing. There was a time in our life, and it was actually in 1994. And Jen and I had been married for 43 years, but at that point we had been married for 11 years. We'd bought our house. We had our first house where our kids were six and eight.

Beautiful girl and boy, we decided to stop there because we had a girl and a boy and fantastic. God was good. We both had good jobs. We had great support from our parents. We were planted in this church. We just loved it. Great support. We had great friends who still, we still have today 30 years later, we've still got the great friends.

We've got, we had everything and we were grateful for what God had given us. And sometimes we don't know how good we have it until the shaking starts. And at that point in our lives, the shaking was about to start. So one Saturday morning, our kids had been overnight with their nana having a bit of a sleepover and they weren't even there in the house, which was probably a good thing.

And Jenny had been vacuuming and she was vacuuming up in our bedroom and I heard this massive thud. And I went in to investigate and she was on the floor with a vacuum cleaner still in her hand, and I thought she was being electrocuted and pulled the plug. And then I came over and I saw she was.

Foaming from the mouth and she was having a seizure. I didn't even know what a seizure was. And I was starting to freak out and I was calling on Jesus and I said, Lord, you gotta help me. What's going on? And ultimately I had to call an ambulance. And that was the start of our journey to discover that Jenny had a brain tumor.

Now entering this brain tumor slash cancer world is a total shock. And the shaking started right there. We had appointments with all sorts of doctors, neurologists and brain surgeons, and the brain, one brain surgeon and the neurologist was very. Uplifting. And he said, oh look, it's okay. It's gonna be, it's in a good place.

It should be fine. He was giving us some hope and stuff, and that was good. And then we had the appointment with the brain surgeon. Now brain surgeons are built for a task, right? They're just, they're the best of the best. They gotta do stuff and but sometimes their bedside manner is not ideal.

And so he wanted to tell us. What it was all about. And there is no good place for a brain tumor. And there is brain tumors that range from stage one to stage four. And his words were these. He said stage one is okay, not that good. Stage two, not real good. And then stage three, really no good.

And stage four, these were his words. He said, you're right, your will that really. Was a sledgehammer below and the shaking of our lives was really on then. And we just, what do we do here, Lord? What do we do here? So ultimately we went through the journey of preparation for the removal of the brain tumor, and there was a lot of time spent, and then there was preparation in hospital.

And I remember one day we were in a ward and there was no one else with us. It was just Jenny and I there. And I want to just give you an example of how shaken I really was because I remember walking over to the window and we were up around four or five levels up and I looked down and I saw people walking along the footpath going about their daily lives.

And I looked down and I said to God, how do these people get to go about their daily lives when we are up here facing this? Not my finest moments. I get that. But that's how I felt. And I just realized after a period of time that I had to pull this together. That's my wife, my kids are six and eight.

I've gotta pull this together. And so what I did was I started looking back at the scriptures that I'd learnt as a very young Christian. I'd been on the journey for maybe 10, 11 years now. I had this fantastic, in my early days of Christianity, I had this fantastic, sophisticated method of learning scripture.

So what I did was I used to get, I got a weak big box and I cut out business card size business cards, and then I wrote scriptures down on there and I put 'em in my pocket and every day I'd go out and I'd pull one out and, oh, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and I just.

Memorize scripture, learn scripture, and I recommend it. And there's probably more sophisticated ways of doing it these days, and you're doing your devotions and stuff, but you know what? It created a bank of scripture in me that I could start to call on, and I did. And the first one I wanna mention is in Philippians four, chapter six and seven, and it says, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

And here's the biggie for me. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. This became a very big scripture for us because we needed some peace at this point in our lives. The shaking was horrendous. There were so many thoughts coming, and the peace of God was what I was after, and so I.

Jenny and I were just praying and we just felt like God put a blanket of peace over us. Like it's the only way I can describe it, and it's always been, it was like a peace bubble and we were in a peace bubble and we, the, it felt like the enemy was firing darts down and trying to get through the bubble and, and occasionally you'd get off track and oh, you'd have a thought like, oh.

God, my kids are six and eight. You know what if this doesn't pan out, what if what if? And I, you had to just cut that out and I had to take those thoughts captive and I bring them back and the peace bubble got filled in again. And honestly, God sustained us through that shaking at that time.

So long story short, Jenny had the operation and we had to wait six days to get the results of the biopsy and to find out whether it was stage 1, 2, 3, or four. The surgeon again, was not too uplifting and he felt like it was an aggressive glioma, which is, was not gonna be great. And so we waited and waited for the biopsy to come back, and then ultimately came back after six days.

There was some public holidays and we were just, a little bit on edge waiting for this. And anyway, that came back and it came back as a non-malignant glioma there. I said is that stage one? He's not even stage one. It's not even cancerous, and that was a miracle for us.

And I tell you what, there was some rejoicing in the ward that day. It was amazing to get that result. And we just felt there was thousands of people praying for us. This church was praying for us, and we just felt God did something amazing that day. However, there was more shaking to come. And so Jenny recovered and we had another seven, seven or eight days in hospital recovered.

And there was the final day when the doctor comes around and they want to give you the summation and the prognosis. And I was a very uneasy about this. As a husband, I was wanting to project protect Jenny. So he came in and he told us that he gave the summation of what happened and what's going on and the prognosis he wanted to tell us.

And he, here it comes and he said, Jenny will have two to five years, 10 will have two to five years. And that's what we had to go home with. And I could see Jenny was upset. And so we went down to the car park and got in the car. And I looked her right in the eye and I said, you know what? That's not what God says.

That's not what God says. They don't get to tell us how long we've got. God tells us how long we have, and we went away and we were uplifted and we, and we had a period of peace for quite some time after that. But it was a journey that was. Really tough. So you know what we live in a world where everything un feels unstable.

I think we'd all agree with that. The world is unstable. Our relationships, our finances, culture, sometimes even our faith feels unstable. For you young people, perhaps the most serious shaking you've endured is perhaps a separation from your mobile devices. That can be really tough, and I'm almost joking, but I talked to a friend of mine last week and we're sitting around the table and she and her husband had bought a caravan and, they went away on a trip and they took the young daughter and son, and the daughter was about 14. And the daughter took a friend who was also about 14. And they went away and they went to a place where there was no signal and she couldn't use her phone. And she started freaking out and she said, oh, I've gotta go and call dad.

And so they had to take her in da into town to call dad and dad. I just got no signal. What am I gonna do? And he basically said, just suck it up, princess. I said, good on your dad, so good. But you know what, we do get far more shaking than that. We experience a lot more shaking than that in our lives, and perhaps the loss of a loved one, the breaking of a relationship, financial calamity, health issues.

Do you know what? Becoming a Christian, and we saw some beautiful things on baptism there, and we heard some beautiful testimony there, but it does not guarantee us a calm, easy life. What it does guarantee you is when the shaking comes, Jesus will take you through the shaking. We are all gonna get the shaking.

If you hadn't, haven't had any shaking yet, get ready. It's coming. It says so. It says, so in the scripture, the in John, it says where have I got a, I've told you these things so that in me, you may have peace, you, this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world. The bottom line is that whatever is troubling us and whatever is causing us to, to have that shaking, we can have peace.

And God wants us not only to have peace, but to overcome these things that occur in our life. But how, the question is how does that happen? How do we hold on When everything we took for granted, everything we trust starts to crumble around us. You know what? We can have all the money in the world, but if we lose our health, that money's not gonna help us.

Money is the chief competitor for our attention with Jesus, the chief competitor of for our faith in Jesus. But money is just a tool. It's not gonna help us in the end. So I want us to take a look at a portion of scripture this morning. And it will help us to see what we need to do to survive the shaking if we are willing to do it.

The portion of scripture comes after the temptation of Jesus, which we heard about recently from Pastor Simon. It also comes after the famous teaching by Jesus called the Sermon on the Mount. Which occupies approximately a hundred verses in the book of Matthew before this scripture that I'm about to talk to you about.

Matthew was a disciple of Jesus who witnessed firsthand the miracles and heard firsthand Jesus teaching, and he recorded it. So the Sermon on the Mount is in chapter five, six, and seven, and Jesus is teaching us. And his primary disciples at the time, how he wants us to live, what our priority should be and what our attitude should be.

And the verses I wanna share you with you this morning is almost a summation of what we should do with all that teaching. This morning we're gonna get a lesson from Jesus to show us how we can not only survive the shaking that we'll experience, but even to overcome. So the verse we're gonna look at this morning is Matthew 7 24 to 27, and it says, therefore.

Whenever it says, therefore, what do we need to know? What it's there for? What is there for is about all the s, the scripture, all the teaching that Jesus has already taught before this Le Lesson. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice, can you say that with me?

Puts them into practice, is like a man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down. The streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock.

Let's go with the next one. Okay, so then everyone who hears these words of mind and does not put them into practice, is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, the wind blew and beat against that house. Okay, so here we have very two, two very similar scenarios.

The rain and the wind and the shaking came to both builders. It came to the fellow who built his house on the rock, and it came to the fellow who built his house on the sand. The only difference between the two scenarios is the first man built his house on the rock, and the second man built his house on the sand.

They were both probably very beautiful houses. Ones that you'd probably buy you, they're pretty cool. Both look the same. Fantastic houses. The only difference was the first man took the time and the trouble and the expense to build his house on the rock.

As a long term Concreter happily retired. I remember the difficulty of working on rocky sites. It was so much harder than working on the sandy sites. Getting down for your machinery to get down to the depth which was required for the footing of the house was very difficult, tedious, and hard. Yakka.

And the engineers were very usually very rarely sympathetic to our argument that we are just replacing the rock, the hard rock with softer concrete. They couldn't get us just get down to the depth and you're, you're gonna get it done. But the point of this parable is not about houses.

Jesus is not too concerned about houses. He's concerned about people. What's the difference between the two? It's putting it into practice. Putting Jesus words into practice. That's the diff, that's the difference between the two scenarios. And so what are we gonna put into practice? We're gonna put into practice what Jesus has taught about in the sermon and in the Mount and other things.

Here's what he talked about in those a hundred verses. Before that. He talked about salt and light. He talked about anger. Anyone troubled by anger, don't put your hand up. He talked about lust. He talked about divorce. He talked about revenge. He talked about loving our enemies. He talked about giving. He talked about prayer.

He talked about fasting. He talked about money. He talked about worry, forgiveness. Forgiveness is a big one. Forgiveness is, can you put into practice forgiving your enemies? Loving your enemies? Can you put into practice? Because he said elsewhere, if you cannot forgive your brother, I can't forgive you.

That's how serious forgiveness is. These are the things that Jesus has taught us about and are we putting them into practice? He's promising us here. If we put them into practice and we build our lives on the rock, we will not fall. We can come overcome these things that are dogging us even right now. We can overcome these things as we put his word into practice.

The book of James, who is Jesus' brother and one of the first disciples and. Watched all of his teaching and he said this, he said, count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops what? Perseverance, must finish its work so that you are a mature, complete, not lacking anything.

Do you know what these shakings that we have, this trouble that we have in life is really for our benefit to be mature, to be complete, to be not lacking in anything, to be able to persevere. And you know what? When you get that big shaking, the next one, it's not so hard. You know how to combat. You've got it in you.

You've persevered before, and all of us have had certain shakings and there'll be more to come. It is just part of this world system. We are gonna be shaken.

He also says, James also says to anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says. He's big on that James. He does not do what he says. He's like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. Do you know what the Bible is all about?

Obedience. God's word is all about obedience from Adam and Eve, who were given a direction from God and were unable they failed. And you know what? We fail, we get that we fail. Sometimes we don't do it right. We maybe don't forgive. We maybe do get angry at a place we fail. And yet God has given us his word in order to learn how to get back up again and start again and say, Lord, I'm sorry I did that wrong.

I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't. My tongue is James said the tongue is such an evil and restless and deadly poison. Sorry, God, and I'm gonna move forward and I'm gonna start again. That is what he wants from us. He wants obedience and he wants us to strive towards obedience in whatever area is dogging you right now.

What are you building your life on currently? Are you building on the rock or are you building on the sand? Imagine the change in our lives. Imagine the change in our families. Imagine the change in our church if we decided if we're gonna go after this, that we would go after that obedience that God is looking for from us.

Imagine the harmony and the beauty of it, and would be just forgiveness would flow and love would flow. And so many good things would happen if we were to put this into practice, as it says in that scripture that we looked out, looked at, this is our challenge. This is our challenge when we get shaken.

This is our challenge to, to put the foundation down now before the shaking comes. That's what that builder did. He put it into practice. He built his house on the rock, and that's what we need to do because a greater shaking is coming. It's inevitable In this life, we will have trouble. Jesus basically just promised it for us.

But we can overcome and we can have peace. And if we put that foundation down now. When that shaking comes, we will be able to stand and stand firm in it and stand firm on the rock. Who is Jesus? That is our, that's our quest today. That's our challenge.

You know what our devotions, what do our devotions say at the bottom of every page? Anyone call it out.

How will I live differently because of what I've just read? And that means how will I put it into practice today? That's where we need to be. I just wanna pray for people today who have a shaking. Going on in your life. Jen and I have had many more shakings that we've been able to get through because of that one that was huge.

But I wanna pray for you this morning and let's just believe that we can start to put a foundation down that when the shaking comes, we will be ready to overcome. So father, I pray for people this morning. Who are going through the shaking right now. Whatever it is, God, and I want you to lift it up to God this morning and say, Lord, I need your peace in this shaking.

I need your peace right now. Help me to get your peace. The peace that passes all understanding. That will guard your heart. It will guard your mind if you allow it to, if you go after that. Peace. And God, I just pray for people today as they're going through this shaking Lord, that you would be with them and you would hold their hand and take them right through to the other side where they can say, God, help me through this, and we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.