Making Room for the Disabled

Like you, I I I wear a lot of different uh roles in my life.

I I have uh the role of husband, father, pastor, brother, son.

But one of my most treasured roles is the title of Lily's Dad.

Uh some of you know Lily's our youngest daughter.

She is turns 20 in a couple of weeks.

She is uh she has special needs, and she's an extraordinary girl.

One of the greatest privileges of my life, one of the wildest adventures of my life is being Lily's dad.

Today we're talking about special needs.

We're talking about disabilities.

This is deeply personal to me and to hundreds of families here at Kingsland.

I'm grateful for the way that Kingsland makes people feel welcomed regardless of the challenges that they face.

God has been so good to us here at Kingsland.

I pray that we never lose that desire, that passion to move in the direction of those around us who might need to be welcomed a little bit differently.

And uh, even so, uh certainly there is still plenty of misconception about the meaning of disabilities, the theological implications of disabilities, and how the church is supposed to respond.

It's estimated that about 70 million Americans have a disability.

And that's a club that any of us could join at any time, uh, whether from the birth of a child or through a traumatic brain injury, uh, any of us could be a part of that 70 million, so it's worth paying attention.

And so when we look at this topic, it's really not important what my opinion is or your opinion is.

We want to look to the Word of God for our answers.

And buried in the midst of the Old Testament, in the book of Leviticus, is an incredible verse that gives us insight.

Would you turn in your Bibles to Leviticus 19?

Leviticus in the Old Testament, chapter 19, and we're going to zero in at verse 14.

That's right toward the very beginning of your Bibles, if you want to turn there.

As you're turning, I want to remind you that we're right on the beginning or the cusp of beginning shaped at home.

This emphasis that begins next Sunday at Kingsland, and that is a look at the story of Joseph in the Old Testament.

I'm super excited about this.

There's been weeks and months of prayer and preparation for this time.

And uh so a couple of things you need to know about.

First of all, this Wednesday evening, men, I want to encourage you to join me here in the worship center as we get started.

I don't know what to do other than to plead or beg, but I just I really want to encourage you to uh seal off everything else and be here.

I think it's gonna be one of those days that we look back on and remember something that God did that was extraordinary.

I have a special word for the men.

And then this coming Sunday, we begin in earnest with six-week sermon series and also community group lessons.

Um, I have one uh special invitation to, I know it's not gonna be everybody, but maybe God would put it on your heart to join me.

6:30 a.m.

next Sunday morning before our other services, we'll gather for about an hour and a half in prayer for that time.

I know every week there's things that only God can do in our midst, but I feel especially that that's true in this Shape That Home series.

We want to ask the Spirit of God to do what only He can do in the hearts of our people and specifically of our men.

So uh you you're invited to join me.

Also, our own Brittany Blackburn wrote a great article that you can find at EmpoweredHomes.org.

Just click on the special needs tab, and uh it's entitled How to Talk to Children About Disability.

So, parents and grandparents, obviously, we want to raise a compassionate and welcoming generation, and I think that gives us a great head start.

So I encourage you to check that out at empoweredhomes.org.

If we're gonna love our disabled neighbors well, we have to better understand the challenges that they face.

We need to be able to answer some questions that maybe we have in the back of our minds about how God relates to the disabled.

And we find the answer in Leviticus 19, verse 14.

Leviticus 19:14

It gives us a glimpse of how we can do that.

It's just one verse.

Would you look on as I read?

Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind.

But you are to fear your God.

I am the Lord.

Obviously, this is a prohibition to Israel about what not to do, but I think buried in the midst of this is a positive insight into what we can do and how we should respond.

So listen, even if you don't have a loved one at home who's dealing with special needs, we all need to understand these admonitions.

I want to share with you three admonitions from the Word of God, from this one verse, that He has for His people.

I think if we can internalize these, we're gonna have a totally different perspective on disability.

Here's the first admonition.

Remember the value.

Remember the value.

God has placed immense value on every human life.

The passage says that we are not to curse the deaf.

You see that word curse?

It's an interesting word.

Maybe you wonder why anybody would have to be told not to curse the disabled.

But the actual word translates curse has quite a bit of nuance here.

It carries the idea of devaluing a life for which God has ascribed value.

The Hebrew word kalal means to bring into contempt, but it literally means to make light.

So just as the word blessing means to add weight to someone, to bring more value, add weight to someone, the idea of curse here is to remove weight, to remove value from the life of another.

And so it's the sense of making someone seem trifling or unimportant.

You're negating the image of God.

That's why it's so precious to him that we not do that.

God says, my people must never do such a thing as to make light of another human being.

You never have to wonder whether any life is an accident.

Psalm 139 tells us, for it is it was you who created my inward parts.

You knit me together in my mother's womb.

I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made.

And so devaluing any life or even some lives is a dangerous thing.

And sadly, it's been a constant throughout history, including in our nation, where some scholars seem to value convenience over some life.

I think about Princeton Professor Peter Singer, who said these words when the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater.

The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second.

I don't know about you, but just reading that gives me the full body shivers, and it's evil.

What he's saying is if somebody else's life limits your happiness, then their life is apparently not valuable.

And incidentally, have you noticed he's the one who gets to choose which life is more valuable?

Like who gets to choose that?

Listen, when only a few lives are sacred, it's not very long that no lives are sacred.

And the rise and fall of any culture can be seen in how inconvenient lives are treated.

No other ministry gives us more opportunity to set aside our give and take, consumer-driven lifestyle than serving those with special needs.

We must always choose people over convenience.

Maybe some of you came today and you thought you could never be loved by God because of who you are or something that you have done.

You see, the value of human life extends far beyond the conversation about disability because it's a lie that anyone is less than in the eyes of God.

In fact, you were so valued that God sent his son to pay the penalty for your sin so that you might be brought into the fold and back into right relationship.

God wants you to know that he loves you and that relationship and forgiveness is available to anyone who would call on him.

That's how much he loves you.

Listen, we must remember, first of all, the value of human life.

There's another admonition in this passage, though.

I think we also must remember the challenges that some people face.

This passage helps us understand the challenges faced by the disabled and their families.

Specifically, if you look back at the verse, it says, Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but you're to fear your God, I am the Lord.

What is a stumbling block?

It's something that is placed in the way of someone that impedes their progress.

There's actually a cruelty in the way this is worded, in this prohibition, if you look at it, because it says, do not curse the deaf.

The deaf cannot hear a curse, nor defend themselves.

And and uh when this was written in ancient times, there was no mechanism for which the deaf could even speak and make a defense.

In this case, it says, do not place a stumbling block in front of the blind.

The blind can't see the block that's in his way.

So the idea is somebody ignoring the needs of the individual because it's not his problem.

And it makes more sense in the context of the entire chapter if you look at it.

This has been the theme that God is calling to Israel.

Look at the chapter overall.

God forbids ignoring the needs of the poor in verse 10.

God forbids stealing and lying in verses 11 and 12.

God forbids cheating a neighbor or a laborer in verse 13.

He forbids harming the disabled in verse 14.

And then he forbids unfair treatment in verses 15 through 18.

And then in verse 18, he sums up the entire section with a phrase so paramount that Jesus quoted it in Matthew.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

It became what Jesus called the second greatest commandment.

You see?

That's what we're called to do.

We're supposed to love enough to see the challenges and do everything we can to remove what part of the challenges we're able to make people feel welcome.

You know, this week I was able to reach out to our families here at Kingsland who are navigating special needs with their children.

You know, we have some amazing families here.

And uh I just said to them, I said, hey, if you had the microphone this morning, what would you want our church family to know about some of the challenges you face?

And listen, I I could it'd take all day for me to read them all.

They were incredible, so insightful.

But I just wanted to share a few so that you could get a glimpse, kind of sometimes what happens in a special needs home.

One said, physical exhaustion is real.

Due to her developmental delays, our daughter needs help with all personal care and basic living needs.

One said, when our son is in the hospital, it takes a toll on our entire family.

We try to remain present for our other two children and support them through school, sports activities, and important events.

One summed it up this way: special needs require you to be on all the time.

One said, as a mother to a nonverbal and intellectually disabled child, there's a heavy mix of grief, worry, and shame over lost milestones, broken communication, and an uncertain future.

God is merciful to cover that shame and carry this weight through reminders of his goodness and his sovereignty, but it really is a daily battle.

One said, sometimes people try to be encouraging and say things like, God must have given you superpowers.

He gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

Special needs parents are no more or less strong than the next person.

We all can only care for our children by the Lord's grace alone, strengthened by the Spirit with eternal hope only in Christ.

Finally, another said, Sometimes being a special needs parent feels like death by a thousand paper cuts.

Those tiny things that you are constantly reminded of when friends invite you somewhere that won't be great for your family, saying no to many things because your kid can't handle it.

Watching younger siblings surpass your older kid in milestones.

Although many times are difficult, I've always learned to appreciate the small victories and see them as blessings from the Lord.

And I wanted to end with that because there was a constant theme among our families that said, yes, we have these challenges, but you need to understand that in the midst of it, we have all these glimpses of God's goodness and his blessing over and over again.

Don't miss that.

I'm also recognizing that the glimpses I gave you are of parents of those with special needs.

There's there's many in our congregation walking through disability yourself, and you have a unique perspective.

And we need to hear one another's stories.

We need to know that, how we best can care for one another so that we can we can really uh show the love of Christ.

I want to get real practical for a second and just share three ways I know that you can minister to others who are walking through this journey.

Now do that.

Here's the first be there.

Be there.

A lot of people don't know what to say to make things better.

You don't have to.

Your presence and your kindness speak volumes.

Incidentally, when you do share, um, this is just one personal bent of my own that I'd share as a dad.

Talk to our loved ones and not just about them.

And it I you never know what it means when somebody takes the time to come up and talk to our family and say something to Lily.

Lily, how are you today?

And I know she can't talk back verbally.

Sometimes she'll use your word, her words, her speech device, many times she won't, but it means the world when you when you acknowledge that she takes in everything that you're saying around her.

Talk to them.

Uh second, stay away from trite comments or easy answers.

I know sometimes oversimplifying uh comes from a good place of seeking to be relatable, but every situation is different.

And even as a special needs dad, my situation doesn't translate to everybody else in the special needs community.

So relating and compassion are important, but comparisons aren't really helpful.

Relatability uh doesn't simplify the needs of the person in front of you.

Um it reminds me of a quote I heard a while back.

It said, once you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism.

That's about as far as it goes.

And third, make them feel welcome.

Disabled individuals and their families have to jump through a thousand hoops.

How can you remove the barriers to welcome them into your community, into your home, or your class, or your gathering?

I think of the friends of the disabled man in Mark chapter two that went above and beyond and actually made a way through the roof to lower their friend into the presence of Jesus.

And I wonder whether we're willing to take those great lengths to make sure that no one is forgotten or falls through the cracks in the midst of our church family.

We love them well.

That's my prayer.

You know, we can't fully understand all that's involved in living with a disability, but we can walk alongside those who are.

I'm super excited to share something today because my friend Dr.

Chris Sneller and I just finished a new book called Grace in the Chaos.

I'd love to tell you you can take one home with you, but they're completely gone after the last few services.

But you can order them on Amazon, and I'm sure they'll be around in the future.

100% of the proceeds of that book go right back into the one funded Kings, and I'm excited about that.

But let me tell you what we did in Grace and the Chaos.

We wanted to answer some of the deeper theological questions related to disability in the context of everyday life and the practical challenges that families face.

And I'm really grateful for how it turned out.

Uh, that's mostly thanks to Chris.

Chris and Monica are part of our Kingsland family, and I'd love for them to help me share more of how this came about.

Would you give a warm welcome to Chris and Monica Sneller as they join me here?

Hey guys.

Good to see you.

Good to see you again.

It's been a while.

No, it's it's been it's been almost an hour.

Yeah.

So, Chris and Monica, tell us first of all, tell us about your family.

Well, Chris and I have been married for 29 years, and we have six kids.

They range from our twins who are 25 down to 14.

We have three biological sons and three daughters that are all adopted from China.

Our son Daniel was born with a variety of special needs.

He loves working at Friends, ice cream, and coffee here at the church.

Um, our daughter Eliza loves volunteering in the special needs ministry.

She has a spine bifida and uses a wheelchair.

Awesome.

Amazing family, really cool kids.

Way to go.

Chris, when we started talking about this book, I remember you made an appointment a couple years ago and sat down in my office.

We need to write a book, Pastor, I want you to pray about it.

And you had a very specific burden in mind.

I did, and there were kind of two audiences I had in mind.

The first was any parent or grandparent or friend or uncle or aunt impacted by someone in their family that has a special need.

I I think in our community, we have a lot of practical questions about our child's diagnosis, about their future, about their education.

But underlying it, there's some deep theological questions that we wrestle with, like is God wise?

Is he good?

Does he love us?

Is he actually in control?

And so we really address those questions in this book.

But the second more narrow audience is as a dad with special needs kids, um, there's been seasons of struggle.

Um, as a man, I'm called to provide for my family, to protect, and I I like fixing things.

I'm not very good at fixing things, but I can at least hire people to fix things in my home.

We like fixing things, but when it comes to our our child children with special needs, we can't fix that.

And so I think a lot of dads in our, you know, in our community, we just hide into our careers and into our hobbies.

Um, and we don't really examine the important questions that we raise in the book.

That's really good.

Yeah, I love how it turned out.

So a little backstory and how it came about.

We said, well, let's let's hear from our families.

And so we interviewed a number of them.

It became a podcast, Grace and the Chaos First, heard such incredible insights from our families.

We had this riches of information and insight into what families walked through, and we knew we were either gonna have to have a chapter for every family, or we just create this kind of conglomerate family where we took some different measures of different ones and created this fictional family.

I love how that family turned out, except you you you imposed an it's an Aggie family, so you know he did something he inserted himself into the book.

So other than that, you know, it's great.

But it it turned out amazing.

I'm just kidding.

I mean, I have all the Aggies mad at me now.

I love that.

So so it ended up being, I think, I think giving more insight also into just kind of the day-to-day um adventures that families face that maybe might surprise some people.

So I think that's gonna be a part of the the benefit of the book.

And Monica, when we talk about the adventures of navigating special needs, what are some of the elements of your life that maybe would surprise some people or have surprised you?

I think one of the biggest surprises has been the contrast between the sadness and disappointment with the exhilaration and joy that we also face.

Uh when Daniel was born, the doctors had told us that they didn't know if he would ever be able to see or to talk or to walk.

And that was devastating.

But a few weeks while he was a few weeks later, we were still in the hospital.

I was reading a picture book to him, and his eyes just popped open at the colors on the page, and I knew he can see.

But the joy of that contrasted with the fear.

And then a few years later, we knew that he was deaf in one ear, but he had perfect pitch in the other.

And he's been musical ever since, loves his instruments.

Um he went to Taylor High School across the street, and he was in the marching band all four years.

The first three years, the staff was amazing, and they made an easy route for Daniel where he could walk forward the whole time while playing his trombone.

That's still hard, right?

But his senior year, he brought us and an assistant principal who knew Daniel's story to his ears when he actually Marched playing his trombone backwards on the field.

It was exceptional.

Wow.

So cool.

It really is.

You know, that I think that that brings up something that maybe would surprise some families that we hear it constantly, right?

Is that everybody focuses on what our kids can't do.

Yeah.

Like every appointment, it seems like every evaluation is what you can't do.

And so many times Lana said, how can I can you ask us what she can do?

Because there's a lot of things she does really well, some things extraordinarily well.

And when you recognize that, it kind of gives you a whole different perspective, right?

And a new level of joy.

So, Chris and Monica, this church, as you know, is full of incredibly gracious people who love well and they want to do something that makes a real impact, right?

What what's some insight you would give to somebody who says, How can I make a difference?

Well, we we love a lot of things about our church family here at Kingsland.

One of the things we're ex especially grateful for is our special needs ministry.

And so there's constantly needs in the special needs ministry, so you could volunteer there.

Um Pastor Ryan, I would appreciate it if you bought our book and if you liked it, share it with other families.

In fact, we sold out.

Um we're we apologize for that, but there is a QR code on the table out here that will take you straight to the Amazon link.

So if you find the book helpful, please share it with neighbors, friends, family members that have been impacted by disability.

And I think the last thing is just be curious.

You wanted to say something on that.

Yeah, I think it's sort of like what you were saying, Ryan.

When you approach someone who has a child, an adult child also with special needs, ask them, you know, how can I help you?

But come truly open-handed with whatever they might respond.

Maybe it's folding laundry or just going for a walk or just listening.

Um also ask them about their child.

What are they exceptional at?

That's a question we don't get asked very often, but that's a great one to ask.

Yeah, for sure.

Chris and Monica, you are a blessing to our church and to me.

Thank you for taking the time today.

You want to thank this another family?

We're admonished to remember the value.

We are called to remember the challenges.

And one last admonition from our passage.

I'm gonna warn you, it's the hardest one to grasp, at least for me, but it's right here and it's unavoidable.

We must remember the mystery.

We have to remember the mystery of disability.

When Chris and I first began talking about the book, the goal was to address this issue, the deeper questions of the mysteries of God that we can't fully understand or we can't connect the dots.

And it's not as though in a book we solved all the answers.

It's that we said, let's focus on what we can know about the character of the God that we serve.

What's true about God?

There's some questions.

There's mystery around life and certainly around disability.

What causes disability?

Why are some people healed and some people not?

We can't understand all of God's ways, and that's really the answer that He's beyond us.

But we can trust Him even when we can't understand.

I think about John chapter 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

John chapter 9, Jesus is about to heal a blind man.

John 9 · chapter mention

The disciples are confronted with this man who was born blind, and they immediately want to start solving the puzzle, like most of us do in life.

And it says, his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned?

This man or his parents, that he was born blind?

Watch this answer.

Neither this man nor his parents sinned, Jesus answered.

This came about so that God's works might be displayed in him.

In other words, God is demonstrating an aspect of his glory and his character through the work that happens in that man's life.

We don't have to understand everything about disabilities, but we can be very sure God is telling us something about his beauty, his glory, and his goodness in every difference displayed.

I've said this many times, but it's true.

Our special needs community at Kingsland changes the personality of our church in a beautiful way.

But not only do we have wonderful service to our special needs friends here, but they serve us in extraordinary ways.

Some of our services have uh special needs friends who are uh receiving the offering.

I love that we have uh disabled friends who are helping to do greeting and all sorts of things.

I love even beyond those specifics, this idea of reorienting priorities, there's something joyous about having people in our midst who deal with special needs because they help us not to take ourselves so seriously and they help us to see the blessings of life, don't they?

But even beyond that, we need to understand that God is working through our special needs community in a very important way as he demonstrates something about himself to us.

And it's buried right here in this passage.

In fact, it's found with the very first verse in chapter 19.

The chapter begins with the idea of God's wisdom and his holiness.

Look what it says.

The Lord spoke to Moses, speak to the entire Israelite community and tell them, watch, be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy.

God is holy, he's transcendent.

There's no one like him.

And that actually helps us recognize how desperate all of us are in light of the perfection of Christ.

Back in verse 14, it also explains the very last phrase in our verse, but you are to fear your God.

Watch, I am the Lord.

He's speaking of the image of God and the sovereignty of God.

And he's saying, you don't have to understand, but you can trust my wisdom.

God is revealing something about his nature in every life he created.

And I have to tell you, this discovery has taken me a long time to grasp.

You see, the hardest part about describing being Lily's dad is this tension between longing and joy.

I long for her to speak.

I long for her to hear and understand.

But I get to see glimpses of God's glory every single day that would blow your mind.

I used to bristle so much when people would say things like, I wouldn't change her if I could, say, Well, I would.

Promise you that.

I mean, if I if I if I could take away some of her suffering, I could hear her words.

I promise you I would.

But there's elements of Lily's life that are a precious gift that I didn't understand early on.

There's aspects even to the challenges that have taught me so much about God that I don't think I could have learned any other way.

There's beauty in Lily's life that she experiences that I don't think everybody else gets to.

And she certainly brings beauty to our lives.

So, church, we must never underestimate how God is working.

The Ben Rector song says it so well.

You wrecked my world in a beautiful way.

That's what God does.

If you volunteer in special needs ministry, you're gonna experience this on the very first day.

You're gonna see glimpses of God that you can't see otherwise.

When somebody lives with a challenge that can't be hidden, it reminds us that none of us is self-sufficient.

Some weaknesses are visible, and others we've just gotten better at hiding.

But every one of us is utterly dependent on the grace of God.

Maybe you don't have a disability that's outward or people know about, but you deal with suffering or what you perceive to be unanswered prayers, longings.

You know the Apostle Paul lived with some persistent affliction, whether it was physical or otherwise, we don't know, but he desperately wanted God to remove it.

And the answer is found in 2 Corinthians chapter 12.

2 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

It says, But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.

Therefore I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may reside in me.

So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties for the sake of Christ.

For when I am weak, then I am strong.

And that strength and weakness applies to every single one of us.

When we can't see all the answers in the midst of disability or suffering, we can be sure God is working.

I still don't understand a lot of the mysteries of Lily's life, but God has shown me things about his goodness through that little girl I might never have seen any other way.

And I know this whatever challenge you brought into this room, if you will embrace the mysteries of God and run to what you can know, that he's good and faithful and kind and holy, righteous, loving, that will be enough.

And if you walk through that door, let me tell you something.

God will do a work in you that will be greater than all those things you wish you could change, but can't.

Would you bow with me, church?

I'm gonna close in prayer in just a moment, and then we'll have an opportunity to respond.

But right now, in the quietness of this moment between your heart and God's, I wonder whether you just invite him to work.

For some, maybe the Lord is gonna call you to a certain element of ministry, some way that you can move into the direction of people around you and demonstrate, ascribe God's value to them, whether volunteering in special ministry, special needs ministry or or uh or just showing love to somebody in your apartment complex or your call-a-sack, your classroom.

Perhaps for you, it's thinking about the own the challenge that you own right now in your life.

Being willing to say, God, there are things that you're doing that I cannot see, and so I will trust you.

Trust you.

After I pray, we're gonna sing and we'll have members of the prayer team here.

I want to encourage you with something.

This prayer team is here because we have the privilege of calling on God for one another.

What a gracious gift God has given us.

And so we begin to sing.

Some of you upstairs or down need to make your way this way to the altar.

Just share a burden that's on your heart and allow somebody to pray with you.

Just establish a marker spiritually in this place today.

You respond as God leads.

So, Father, thank you for your word.

Thank you for your goodness.

Lord, speak to our hearts now.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Hey, Pastor Ryan Rush here, and I just want to thank you for being with us at Kings Alum Line today.

What an honor.

But I'll tell you what would be even better.

We'd love to see you get connected with the physical church in the days ahead if you haven't already.

And that means maybe if you're local in the West Eastern area, we'd love to see you again.

We can do that.