Tyndale Chapel Podcast

Well, I was asked to speak about the grace of God in our lives, and share a story, and I will. I just want to begin by saying, being here right now is the grace of God to me. The first time I came in this building, I was struck by the presence of the Spirit. And I actually whispered to the Lord, I said, Would you let me preach here some day. And I actually taught here, a class, I've spoke here, through the COVID time, online, but this is the first time I've spoken in public, I just wanna say, this is a great grace to me the Lord has answered a prayer. And I'm so excited to be here. I also recognize it's a very sad time, and the loss of Dr. Noel, the tragedy, it broke my heart sitting here, the funeral. And I just want to thank you for allowing me to speak I would have easily stepped aside and but the fact that you've trusted me with this honour, I'm thankful.

I do want to start with a story. And I don't think it'll be irreverent. I think Dr. Noel would think it was funny. You know, his style. So I'll begin with a story I want to take you back to myself when I'm just finished my first degree, and I'm going to go to do my Masters at the University of Cambridge. And so I fly across the Atlantic, I land there, I don't know anyone. I have the goal of becoming a strong theologian. But I also had one other goal. That's, I really wanted to see, and maybe even meet, Stephen Hawking. He was famous, I knew he was a brilliant mind, probably one most brilliant there at Cambridge. He also was on Star Trek Next Generation, which I love. So I was I always had my I was always looking for him. And I had friends who were in the physics department, I was trying to get them to sneak me in. But he was really hard to get ahold of. So one year went by, and I didn't see him. And then another year went by, I was in the middle of my last year, and I must have been 2000 or so. So taking it back a bit. And I remember I'm just walking down the street, and Cambridge has a section they block off during the day, and it's kind of open to walk on a road. And I look over and I see, I see the wheelchair, and I see a number of kids gathered around it. And I see them poking the person in the wheelchair. I was like, What is this? So I walked over, just to see what was happening, and lo and behold, it is Stephen Hawking. And he is there and he's kind of slumped over his chair like this. And the kids are kind of poking him, so I'm starting to scatter them away. While I'm doing this, a beep starts happening, beep beep and a warning sign comes on his screen, on his on his chair, says a warning warning. And I'm looking at him slumped over. I'm like, oh my what is happening here. And back then, in Canada, cell phones weren't very popular. But in England there they already were. And so there's a lady walking by and I grabbed, I need your cell phone, and I grabbed her phone, I started calling the equivalent of 911. And at that moment, a lady ran out of the Woolworths, came to his chair, grabbed his head and picked it up. And he looked over, and he looked over at me. And he got very angry at me. He's mad at me. I think he thought I poked him. And so I'm here with Stephen Hawking and his, I believe it was wife that came out said, "Don't worry about him. It's his own fault". And then she kind of drove away. And I when I realized that the story I think he had hit a little lip on the the edge of the sidewalk and he kind of slumped over and I don't know what was happening. And, but I do know that I had no expertise to to deal with this. And I look back at the story and I'm thankful, once it's like good, thank you for allowing me to have met him. Didn't necessarily need the anger part. And my friends look back at this and they I always say to them, that was the time I almost saved Stephen Hawking's life. They say it's the time I almost killed Stephen Hawking. I asked the Lord like, what do you want me to learn from this? What is going on with this story? And over the years as I've thought about it, you know, I've tried to understand what what was going on there. And I want to think back.

First of all, God is gracious, he allowed me to meet someone that I wanted to meet. He gave me a good story. And it's kind of funny. It ended with everyone intact. But it also taught me that I don't need to be a hero. That I'm not always called to be the hero. In fact, I just did what I could, which was to call someone else to come and try to help. And then that was enough. You know, I think maybe somewhere in my younger mind, maybe meeting Stephen Hawking would make me special somehow. Right? We love celebrity, we love fame and, and we all want to be stars, especially in this day and age. Now I gotta admit, some ways I've had those dreams before. I you know, I want to be the superstar pastor. I'll be a super famous academic. But I realized that's for God to decide. That's something I should ever be chasing. You know, and we have this problem and a lot of us from the evangelical culture, where you know, we value things like celebrity, over celibacy, or name recognition over letting our lives give Jesus' name recognition. When I start to think about the spiritual reality. You know, it gets difficult because even here at Tyndale, you know, we become famous for some of our connections and, and some of them like, like Ravi or Bruxy, getting headlines for the wrong reasons right now. We get attracted to the big names, don't we? We think about, you know, how they can help make Jesus famous, or help people know the gospel. But we need to celebrate the 1000s who are contributing to the Kingdom of God. And as I start to think about, I start to realize the amazing thing about Tyndale, as much as we have awesome, you know, names and people who've done great notable things. It's the 1000s of graduates all over the world who are living their lives for Jesus in those quiet ways that are powerfully impacting their people, in their places, in their culture. That is the thing that makes Tyndale special. That is the thing that we should be thinking about. To recognize that, maybe by God's grace, we can become some of those people. May we make that our ambition.

Make it your ambition, to lead a quiet life. You should mind your own business, and work with your hands just as we told you. So that your daily life may win the respected outsiders, and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. So my challenge to you as students, and even the faculty and staff, is not to require worldwide big things of yourself. I'm not saying don't dream big, okay. Some of you are meant to dream big. Dream the dreams that God gives to you. For some, it's gonna be big. Some of you might be Moses's, and Pauls. Some of you might be the ones who dig the holes, the set up the poles for the tabernacle. And all are meant to glorify God with their lives. Make it your ambition, to lead a quiet life. I love this word, because a lot of times we think of ambition in, in Christian circles, we think of like selfish ambition, they always go together, right. But here we have an ambition to live a quiet life. Something powerful here. It's a life that's not centred on self, it's a life that's centred on Jesus. Mind your own business and work with your hands. I love this idea of, you know, we recognize that we are supposed to think about our own lives, stay out of other people's drama, not get ourselves involved. Christians, don't get all up in other people's faces. We do this all the time, right? And other people's business. When it says work with your hands, I don't think he means you have to be labourer to be a good, I was a labourer in the union. So I'm covered just in case. I think what he's saying here is be happy to live your life simply doing productive work. And for you who are studying, that means work hard on your studies. Not so you can be famous, because this is unto the Lord. He's saying that we need to work hard. so others respect us. Isn't that what he called us to, that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders.

We need to live our lives in such a way that other people take notice and say, I respect what this person is all about. I see their hard work. Not I see how famous they are. Because when we start to value those things, what starts to happen, we start to see the kind of the dichotomy and things start to break down. What we respect people for, is that they use their skills unto the Lord. You don't need to be famous, or important, for Jesus to use you. Doesn't have to be flashy, or or loud. Now when it says quiet lives by the way, I don't think it means you you who are bombastic, if your gift is being, you know, really out there, that doesn't mean now all of a sudden be quiet. What it's trying to talk about here, live a life that you use your gifts in a special way that God will be able to be glorified through. That you're not pointing towards yourself. Here's the thing. Is it your ambition, to honour Jesus with your life? If that's what you're you're doing, then you're set, whatever whatever you're doing, is that what you're trying to do? Are you trying to bring glory to God?

I was talking to Dr. Gilbertson before this and she mentioned how she likes to use the example of Andrew. He's famous for his bringing Peter to Jesus. That's a powerful thing to think of. Now obviously, he's an apostle in his own right, and he has many you know have St. Andrew's cathedrals and such things. But the reality is that what we do with us, is what God puts before us. And that's, that's it. When I started doing hip hop, at first right, I was in England I got, we got a little record deal. I was like, oh, I want to be like, you know, if I become famous rapping for Jesus will make Jesus honour. I think Jesus realized that if that happened, I would do nothing of the sort. That's not what he wanted, you know, he wanted me to do, he wanted me to use my hip hop in a way to exalt Him to, to do prayers of benedictions. I've, I've done prayers, and Raps at weddings, and funerals and teaching. You know, I saw Ethan show me a little video of him doing some freestyle prayer before, for the students here. And I was like, Oh, I looked at my heart to realize a little bit of my life. And how I do things, is how someone else is doing that and how we could pass down. This is the impact is undeniable. And when we start to live and use your gifts in ways for Jesus, rather than thinking about how it's going to look for you. You don't need to be famous to bring honour and fame to Jesus. Live your life in such a way that you are quietly going about it, and people will notice. So you're not dependent on anybody. I don't think this means that you don't need a community. I think what he's trying to say here is that what you're using your gifts and ways that you yourselves are blessing the rest of the community, that you need to be doing your part in it. And this is important, because I think for me, when I think about Dr. Noel, I think this this is he represented this, this is who he was. He was someone who was able to live a life that quietly but surely impacted so many people. Like when you saw this place filled, you heard all the stories, you're like, Oh, my he was a powerhouse for God. Look what he did. He poured into each of us, and each of us. Made us special and he, now think of all the pastors that are now preaching the word of God through his quiet influence. He's not in the headlines in the newspapers, and but he is someone who has made an impact for for God beyond what, probably he even realized. And that's because he wasn't trying to seek glory for his own name. What would it look like, if we had a generation of Christians who no longer thought it was just through media and through fame, and through big churches, that that was the way we got the name of Jesus, but it was actually doing the quiet work of pouring and loving lives as we go about it? And in my own life, I've had to deal with it sometimes, you know, I went from preaching Easter service to like 700 people to 60 people and thinking like, God, what's going on here? Have I done something wrong? Lord's like, No, I want you to, to use you where I have you. And now it doesn't matter about numbers. It doesn't matter about you seeing the impact. But it matters, that you're faithful in those moments, and you live that quiet life in submission to God. That's, that's my prayer for all of us here is that we would recognize in Dr. Noel a pattern that would allow us to live our lives differently. Not seeking fame, not seeking glory, but seeking to serve quietly, in the spirit of God, wherever He has put us, and allow Him through that, to show us after it all, why He put us where he put us, and how He put us where we put us and that we were faithful in those moments. So we did the right thing. Whatever He gave us, we picked up the cell phone, we called at the right moment, we didn't try to do anything. We just did what we were supposed to do in that moment and let him work out what happens with it. So those of you who are starting here, I just want to put that into your challenge, you're to work unto Jesus in your studies, and allow Him to be able to work it out. Some of you are gonna be the top students and the you know, really, some of you are going to be just getting through and push on. But the reality is that God has you here for a purpose and a reason. And as you work at this, He will then use you in the community, in ways that you can't even understand right now. But I hope and pray that someday we will all look back and we can see the impact we had, just like we just saw with Dr. Noel. As that's my prayer for Tyndale, we'll be producing quiet lives that honour God, so other people look in our daily lives and see that we are different and that we actually have something special. They would then point to Jesus and give him honour.

Let's pray.

Lord, let's not be gawking to be famous, like Stephen Hawking,
or even known for being a rocking, Lord God.
Let's not worry about all the mocking.
But let's realize that our hearts need to be interlocking with your spirit.
Our purpose would you let us hear it make it clear
that we would revere you.
Thank you for letting me be here in the Chapel
and rap to you all.
Lord God we tip our cap to you.
We ask that you would come here and help us live lives that are quiet
and your church through that may You revive it.