Weak People Do Amazing Things

Introduction

Jonathan to our services this morning. Jonathan is no stranger to the Church of Christ at South Bumbi. He grew up here and he was here uh many years ago as a youngster, and I’m sure he went to Teen Weekend, didn’t you, Jonathan? Jonathan is hosting our Teen Weekend uh here at the South Bumbi Church of Christ, and it is a special time wherein all the teenagers are able to hear special lessons. He has spoke for us uh a Saturday, yesterday, with three different sessions, and then this morning in combining the teenage middle school and high school classes, and then he will deliver his concluding lesson for us for them, but also for us at large as well, and we are glad to have him here. I would like to just read one scripture.

He says very clearly, Paul writes, he says, I take pleasure in infirmities, reproaches, and needs and persecutions and distresses for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. That is his topic for this morning. Uh, as we can do amazing things, even though we’re weak, Christ can make us stronger. So without further ado, we’ll ask Brother Jonathan to come forward and deliver our lesson. Youngsters wrote a thank you card. We want you to have a good morning. I’m gonna ask all of you to take your Bible turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Uh that’s where we’re gonna begin our study, and that has been the title text for our teen weekend that we’ve been doing with the kids this weekend.

Uh while you’re turning there, I just want to say thank you so much for having me here today. It is a uh true blessing, a true privilege to be back here with you. This is uh the pulpit where I led my first song, and I gave my first talk, and I led my first prayer. And that’s that’s special to me. There used to be a little step stool that they put under here that I had to pull out and stand on, and uh it’s still there. It’s still there. I wasn’t expecting that. But uh it’s wonderful to be with all of you today. 2 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 7, the Bible says this. Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me to keep me from exalting myself.

Concerning this, I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And he has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. That’s the text that we’ve been talking about this weekend, and I love what Paul says there in verse 9. He says that power is perfected in weakness. Power is perfected in weakness. And I think that is just an amazing phrase. You know, usually, especially as Christians, we we think of weakness differently than that, right?

We look at the idea of weakness and we think it’s what? We think weakness is bad. Weakness is shameful. We think that if you say you’re weak, something’s wrong with you, right? If I came up to you this morning and said, you know, guys, I’m feeling really weak, you’d look at me and you’d say, Well, let’s see how we can fix that because you’re a Christian, you’re not supposed to feel weak. You’re supposed to be what? Strong. And Paul says, power is perfected in weakness. We think sometimes as Christians, that the whole idea of the Christian life is it’s all about weak people getting stronger. It’s all about people who couldn’t do it, who didn’t have it figured out, finally putting all the pieces together and getting strong enough to the point where they are self-sufficient, where they can carry their burdens, where they can do what they need to do and accomplish what they need to accomplish.

But I contend this morning that it’s actually the opposite. That really, when it comes to the Christian life, the Christian life is not. It is not about weak people becoming stronger. The Christian life is about weak people accepting just how weak they are. It is about weak people admitting that by ourselves, without the help of God, without the support of other Christians, we are incredibly weak. Power is perfected in weakness. And why is that important for us to understand? Why is it important for us to understand that as Christians, we are incredibly weak. And that’s because once you know that you’re weak, once you really accept it and you really admit it, you stop depending on yourself. And you start depending on God. Once you admit that you are not going to be able to save yourself, that you are not going to be able to lift yourself up.

Once you understand that you cannot do this by yourself, it forces you to turn to God and depend on Him instead of depending on yourself. That’s why power is perfected in weakness, because people who know that they’re weak, they turn to God and they lean on God and they depend on God, and that’s when His power courses through our lives. Power is perfected in weakness.

What happens in the life of a Christian when they stop depending on themselves, when they start looking in the mirror and seeing a weak person looking back at them? What happens when you really do admit that you’re weak? We talked about a few of those things. We talked about how when you see yourself as weak, you stop depending on yourself and you start clinging to Jesus. When you see yourself as weak, you stop trying to defend yourself with your own ideas in your battle against Satan, and you start putting on the armor of God. I don’t know, maybe that one was wrong. And this morning we talked about how when you see yourself as weak, you stop trying to fly solo. You stop trying to do this whole Christian thing by yourself, and you really start leaning into good, deep spiritual friendships because we cannot do this on our own.

1. Weak People Do Amazing Things

This morning, I want to talk to talk to you about something else that happens when we admit that we are weak. I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that weak people do amazing things. Weak people do amazing things. Go ahead and take your Bible and turn to the book of Judges. I want you to go to Judges with me really quick. All the way back there in Judges chapter 6. Judges chapter 6. You know, that’s something that we see throughout Scripture. And if you watch Scripture carefully, then you’ll be able to notice it. You’ll be able to see that it’s always, for some reason, the people who are weak, the people who are limited, the people who aren’t really uh, who don’t really think a lot of themselves, it always ends up being those kind of people that end up doing the most amazing things for God.

And you can see that in a lot of different places. The Bible heroes that we really celebrate were people who were painfully aware of their own weakness. We see that in people like Moses, right? We see that in the story of Rahab, we see that in the story of Jephthah, we see that in the story of David and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego. We see that all over the Bible. It happens to be the weak ones who end up doing the most amazing things. But maybe my favorite example of that is the story of Gideon here in Judges chapter 6. Because Gideon is a guy who knows without a doubt he is really weak. Our initial introduction to Gideon is underwhelming to say the least. The Midianites have been ravaging the Israelites and their land for decades at this point.

And when the people cry out to God, and God sends an angel, and he happens to send an angel to a guy named Gideon, and we read about that encounter in verse 11. In Judges 6 and verse 11, then the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Orpha, uh Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abizarite, and his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress in order to save it from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior. Then Gideon said to him, O Lord, if if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his miracles which our fathers told us about?

Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt? But now the Lord has abandoned us and has given us into the hand of Midian. The Lord looked at him and said, Go, in this your strength, and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you? He said to him, O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least of Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house. And so when we come upon Gideon, what we find is we find a weak man. And not just a weak man, but a man who is painfully aware of just how weak he is. The angel finds him hiding in a wine press, beating out the wheat, right? You’re not supposed to beat out wheat in a wine press.

What he’s doing is he’s hiding from the Midianites because he wants to make sure he keeps that wheat, and so he’s doing it in a secret place. And so the angel finds him in this in this embarrassing state where he is hiding so that he can keep the wheat that he’s making. And when the angel suggests the plan that Gideon is supposed to deliver Israel, Gideon points out that he’s the youngest man in the weakest family among his entire tribe. Gideon is incredibly weak. And it gets even worse throughout the story of Gideon. God calls him to his first mission. His first mission isn’t to defeat the Midianites, it’s simply to tear down an altar that’s in their town. And Gideon is so weak and he’s so unsure of himself, he’s so insecure that instead of just going out and tearing it down, he does it at night when he thinks nobody’s gonna see him.

And when Gideon finally does gather up his army, he manages to assemble the most unimpressive fighting force in the history of warfare. He gets together 300 men, and none of them even have a single weapon on hand. Just trumpets and torches and pitchers.

It says in the book of Judges that they cry out, a sword for the Lord and for Gideon. And the funny thing is, none of them have a sword. And so none of them have a weapon on hand. They are incredibly weak. Gideon is weak and he knows it. And that’s kind of the point. God wants him to feel weak. God wants him to be painfully aware of his weakness. God tells him in that story, when he whittles down his army of nearly 30,000 to nothing, he tells him, he tells him that I don’t want you to have this big of an army because I don’t want you to look at this battle. I don’t want you to look at this victory and think that it came because you’re strong.

I don’t want you to think it came because you’re mighty, because you did it, because you accomplished this. I’m going to whittle your army down to 300 men, because I want you to know that I did this because 300 unarmed men don’t defeat massive armies without the help of God. God chooses him. And God orchestrates this story the way he does, because he wants Gideon to know how weak he is. And it’s always the weak ones in the Bible who do the most amazing things. We read that in Hebrews 11, Hebrews 11, verse 32. It says, and what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

You know what the writer of Hebrews is saying? He’s saying, look, guys, it’s always the weak ones who don’t do the most amazing things. He says, all these people from weakness were made strong. It’s always the weak ones who do the most amazing things. And why is that? Because again, this is no coincidence. God does this on purpose. He doesn’t choose the biggest, most mighty, the strongest, the most impressive, except when he chose Saul, which we saw how that turned out. He always chooses the weak ones. Why do weak people always do amazing things? And it’s because, brothers and sisters, those who look at themselves and know that they’re weak are forced to lean on the power of God. When those people who think that they’re strong spend their whole lives depending on nothing but their own strength.

And I’ll tell you this much nobody has ever done anything amazing by their own strength. It’s always the weak ones, because the weak ones lean on the power of God. In Isaiah, Isaiah 40, verses 28 through 31, in that famous passage, I think it’s telling us that exact same idea. Isaiah says, Do you not know? Have you not heard the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, does not become weary or tired? His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might, he increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.

Do you see what Isaiah is saying in that passage? He says, the young men, the vigorous men, the 20 something men who spend a lot of time in the gym because they’re not married and don’t have kids yet, men, they’re the ones who stumble. They’re the ones who fall down. They’re the ones who get weary and tired because they’re the ones who depend on their own strength. They’re the ones who think they are the strength that comes to bear in these situations. But those who wait on the Lord, they do not get tired. They do not grow weary. They mount up with wings like eagles. Those who trust in the Lord are really the ones who do amazing things. They’re the ones who fight massive armies with 300 men and win.

They’re the ones who face giants without any armor on and ultimately win. They’re the ones who get thrown into fiery furnaces and lions’ dens and come out unsinged and uneaten. It’s always the weak ones who do amazing things like that because they lean on God’s strength, not their own strength. And as a result of that, they become almost untouchable with the way they live their lives. An evil king can throw them into a fiery furnace, and the fire doesn’t touch them.

You can set them up against a huge giant, and with just one stone, they can win the battle. Those who depend on the strength of God rather than their own strength, they ride on eagle’s wings. They are almost, it seems, untouchable with the way they live their lives.

2. Depending on Our Own Strength, We Play It Safe

So here’s the critical question. How do you live your life? Are you somebody who sees yourself as weak? And because of that, you depend on the strength of God? Or are you somebody who depends on your own strength? Are you weak? Are you strong? It seems to me that one of the most common mistakes that we make in our walk with the Lord is that we depend on our own strength instead of his strength. It’s certainly one of the most common mistakes that I make in my walk. And as a result, what you find when people depend on their own strength instead of God’s strength, you find that people end up playing it safe. That is the inevitable result of depending on yourself, isn’t it? I mean, after all, you know what you’re capable of.

You know what your limits are. You know what you can do. You know how far you can go. If you’re a weightlifter, you know how much you can deadlift. If you’re a runner, you know how far you can run and how fast you can run that far. We know the limits of our own strength. And so what happens if we depend on our own strength, we stay within those limits. And we live our entire lives playing it safe within the sphere of our own strength. And so we only spend our lives doing things, doing only the things that we know are attainable. We live our lives saying, okay, I’m never going to do anything big, I’m not going to do anything scary, I’m not going to do anything risky, I’m not going to do anything uncertain.

I’m not going to do anything that I can’t control. We play it safe. Because we know our limits, we know what we’re capable of, and we’re depending on ourselves. So we never step out on that branch and do something that’s a little big or scary or risky or uncertain. We never do anything that we can’t control because we’re trusting in ourselves rather than trusting in God. And that may manifest itself in different ways. I wrote a list out here of ways that might manifest itself in our lives. We play it safe. Sometimes that looks like a man who never speaks to his neighbor about Jesus. Because even though he knows he should talk to him, even though he has the gospel within him, he doesn’t know how that conversation’s going to go.

He’s scared that it might go sideways. And so he just judges it to be too risky, and he never opens up his mouth. He plays it safe. That may look like a wife who knows that she needs to have that difficult conversation with her husband. She knows that her family needs to get more serious about spiritual things, and she wants to say, hey, we need to study the Bible more. We need to pray more. We need to engage more with spiritual things. But at the same time, she doesn’t know how he’s going to react to that. And so what she does is she plays it safe. She keeps her mouth shut because she doesn’t want to rock the boat. That may look like two parents who know exactly the way they want to raise their kids and exactly what kind of decisions they need to make that are going to be good for their kids.

But because they don’t want their kids to get mad at them or hate them or not be their friend anymore, because they’re scared of how their kids are going to react, they just don’t make the hard decisions that they know they need to make. They play it safe. That may look like a wealthy person who continually stores riches away in a bank or a mutual fund rather than giving some away to those who are in need, because the more riches he has, the more strength he thinks he has, and the safer he feels he plays it safe. That may be the kid at school who truly believes that homosexuality and transsexuality and sexual immorality, they are wrong, but who never speaks up to it about, speaks up about it to their friends because they know that their friends aren’t on the same page about that, and they’re not sure that they can convince them, and they’re kind of scared that they’re going to lose all their friends, and they don’t know what’s going to happen next if they’re at school with no friends, and so they just keep their mouth shut and they play it safe.

That may look like a couple who’s thought about adopting, but they aren’t quite sure they can handle all the things that go on with that or all the emotional difficulties with that, and so they just play it safe. That may look like a man who wants to leave his job to go preach the gospel, but he’s worried about how he’s gonna be supported. He’s worried about whether he’s gonna find what he needs. He’s worried about whether or not he’s gonna be successful if he steps out on that limb and commits his life to sharing the gospel with the lost. And so what he does is he just stays in the job that he’s been in for 15 years and plays it safe. Because he’s scared he might regret taking that risk.

That might look like an eldership that knows the right stand that they need to take, but they refuse to take it because they’re worried about what the outcome might be. That might look like a preacher who knows the sermon that he needs to preach, but will not preach it because he’s worried about the backlash he’s gonna get from the people in the church. So he gets up on Sunday and he preaches another sermon on Matthew 5.

That looks like the person who knows the right thing to do, but does not do it. Because doing the right thing is scary and hard and risky and uncomfortable. That’s what we do so often, brothers and sisters. We play it safe. Because we know our strengths, we know our limits, and we’re scared to stop depending on ourselves and start depending on God. But I remind you, it’s the weak ones who always do amazing things. Like Gideon, we are called upon to stop depending on ourselves and to start trusting in the power of God. And perhaps when we do that, and when we step out on that limb, we will find that what is true of those people in Hebrews chapter 11 is true of us as well, that from weakness we are made strong.

We will find that there are amazing things that we can’t accomplish in our lives if we simply stop depending on ourselves and start trusting in God. Do you remember what David said in Psalm 34 and verse 8? When he was talking about how the Lord had helped him and he was writing about how amazing God had been and the way God had saved him when he couldn’t save himself, he says, Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. He encourages all of us to step out on that limb and to live these kinds of lives where we, even though we may not be able to see what happens next, we need to step out and trust that when we depend on God’s power, he will see us through.

3. An Absolutely Robust Prayer Life

And then we can live our lives on his strength rather than our own strength. Then we can do amazing things in this world in our families in this church. It’s always the weak ones who do amazing things. Now that leaves one question this morning, which is well, what does that look like? What’s it look like to really depend on God’s strength? Practically speaking. We talked about a few of these with the kids this weekend. I want to share a few of them with you. First of all, what that means is that means that you should have an absolutely robust prayer life, right? You need to make sure that you are praying to God and depending on God through prayer again and again and again throughout your life.

4. Lives of Total Obedience

In 1 Peter 5 and verse 6, it says, Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. That’s what God tells us to do. He says, I want you to take every anxiety in your life, and I want you to throw it on me because I can handle it. I’m strong enough, right? We need to be the kind of people who have an absolutely robust prayer life. And I’ll tell you what else that looks like. It also looks like people who live lives of total obedience. We need to be the kind of people who do exactly what God says, without exception, without qualification. In Matthew 7 and verse 24, Jesus tells that famous parable of the wise man and the foolish man.

He says, Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts upon them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. Now, I don’t know about you, but I remember VBS, and I remember singing all those kids’ songs in kids’ classes back there. I remember singing the wise man’s song, right? The wise man built his house. You remember that song? And I always thought, okay, there’s a wise man, there’s a foolish man, one’s house goes flat, one’s house stands firm, and the foolish man, he’s like the atheist, right? He’s the atheist who doesn’t believe in God and his house goes splat because he doesn’t believe. And the wise man, he’s a Christian, he goes to church. He believes in God.

5. Patient Suffering

That is not the wise man and the foolish man. Jesus says, you know who the wise man in wise man is? It’s the one who hears my words and does them. You know who the foolish man is? The one who hears my words and does not do them. If we really believe in God, if we really trust in God, if we really depend on his strength, that means we live lives of total obedience. We live lives where we hear his words and we do them. No matter what it costs, no matter what it takes, no matter what sacrifices are required. Total obedience shows just how much we trust in God and his word. Thirdly, this looks like patient suffering. Depending on God’s power looks like patient suffering.

And now I’m realizing I made a mistake. That should be 2 Corinthians. I’m sorry, not 1 Corinthians. Read 2 Corinthians 12, verses 9 and 10, right? And he said to him, said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties for Christ’s sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. And so the most direct application of what Paul is talking about here is sometimes in our lives, we deal with hard things. Paul in this passage is dealing with a thorn in his side that is so troublesome to him that he implores the Lord three times for him to remove it.

And God says no. God says no because the thorn is what he needs. The thorn is what reminds Paul of his weakness. The thorn is what keeps him from exalting himself. It makes him the person he needs to be. And if we are going to depend on the power of God, that means whenever suffering comes into our lives, we receive it with joy. We don’t complain, we don’t whine, we don’t moan, we don’t lose our faith and question God. Instead, we look at that and remember that God is the giver of every good and perfect gift, and that includes suffering sometimes. Because it changes us in ways that other things in this world cannot change us. Depending on God means suffering patiently. But let me say this finally.

6. Rising to the Challenge Before You

It means rising to the challenge before you.

David and Gideon and Moses, no one’s running out there in the world just trying to get involved in something risky or something out of their control or something uncertain. That would be a mark of foolishness, wouldn’t it? No, what happens with all of these men is all of a sudden, throughout the course of their regular everyday life, they are thrust into situations that require, that require them to depend on the strength of God. And what you see in all of these men is when they find themselves in these situations, even though they were expecting it, even though they weren’t looking at it, even though they felt like they weren’t prepared for it in a lot of ways, uh Gideon certainly didn’t feel prepared for what he was called to do.

They still choose to rise to the challenge before them and trust in the power of God, even though they’ve just been thrust into this moment of incredible decision. And that’s what we do too. I’m not telling you you need to go out today and go looking for trouble. I’m not saying you should go take a risk just for the sake of taking a risk, but I am telling you that in your own life, when the challenge rises before you, when you are thrust into that moment of decision, do not lose heart, do not shrink back. But rise to the challenge before you. Trusting not in your own strength, but in the strength and the power of God. I don’t know what that looks like for you.

I don’t know if that means a new job. I don’t know if that means a change at your home. I don’t know if that just means sitting and patiently enduring just something excruciating that’s happening in your life right now. But whatever it is, I want you to know this. You are weak. And you are not strong enough to handle it. But God is.

Conclusion

I love the idea of what Paul says that when I am weak, then I am strong. Because it’s not just applicable throughout the course of our Christian lives. It’s actually how our Christian life begins. Our walk with Christ begins by us admitting that we are weak. Jesus said in Matthew 5, verse 3 that blessed are the poor in spirit. In other words, blessed are the people who understand that there’s nothing they can give to God to make up for what they’ve done to God. Blessed are the people who understand that they are broken, and that the only way, the only way they’re going to be saved is by depending on the grace and mercy and kindness of someone else. Our Christian life begins with us understanding that we cannot save ourselves, that because of our sins, Jesus had to die on a cross in the most gruesome and horrible way to make it possible for us to be saved from our sins.

Our Christian life begins by understanding that there is no good deed we can do to make up for our sins. It’s only the perfect sacrifice of Jesus that can wash those sins away. Maybe you’re sitting here this morning and you’ve never committed your life to Christ. If you’re ready this morning to admit that you’re weak, that you need salvation. The Bible tells us how we can depend on God’s strength. It tells us that if we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, if we’re willing to repent of our sins that caused him to go to the cross in the first place, if we’re willing to confess our belief before men, then we can be baptized in water to have our sins washed away. And in that sense, again, power will be perfected in weakness.

Because by admitting that you cannot save yourself, it forces you to depend on the precious blood of Jesus to wash your sins away in the waters of baptism. If you’re weak, you can be made strong through the saving power of Jesus’ blood today. We invite you to do that while we come to the front, while we if if you’ll come to the front while we stand and while we sing.