Weak is the New Strong | Kingdom

Theocast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:05

Welcome to the Kingdom Podcast. I'm John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and Kingdom Podcast is a ministry of Theocast.

00:13

You can learn more about that at theocast .org. Our goal for this podcast is to help people think through, what does it look like to live in the kingdom of light while finding the kingdom of darkness?

00:25

When Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of God, how does that work on a day in and day out basis?

00:31

The title of today is, Weak is the New Strong. I've been in ministry for almost 20 years now, and I have had the opportunities to just observe people, people that I've counseled and shepherded and have taught and preached to.

00:47

It is interesting, I'm doing a series on spiritual warfare and the tactics of the deceiver.

00:55

I find it interesting that a man who had every right to stand in his own strength from his knowledge, his capacities, people are taking droplets of sweat from his body on a scarf and are going and healing people.

01:12

Then Paul says, we're all talking about Paul by now, the guy took a beating like no one else. Have you ever read the list, whipped five times, left for dead?

01:21

You talk about modern day superheroes, this guy must have had, who knows what, but he described himself as this weak, quiet man, little.

01:31

It's fascinating. And then he gets taken to the third heaven, and he's like, to keep me humble,

01:37

God put a thorn in my flesh, which is, just stop and think about that for a moment. To keep Paul from finding strength in what he has experienced, he's somehow put a pain in him, and Paul says that that caused him to be weak, and in his weakness, he realized where his real strength was.

01:57

It's not in what he had accomplished or seen or where he had been. He says, my strength was in realizing

02:03

I had no strength in me. When I am weak, then

02:08

I am strong. That is so upside down. That's the upside down nature of the kingdom.

02:15

Like how else would Paul find great confidence riding to the Ephesians when he says, stand in the strength of the

02:21

Lord, right? He says, you're not going to be able to withstand Satan and the onslaught of what's coming your way.

02:27

Thankfully, he doesn't say, discipline yourself, try harder. He says, put on an armament that is supernatural, 2

02:35

Corinthians 10 5, right? He says, our weapons of warfare are not of the flesh, but of divine power.

02:41

That means there's nothing within our flesh that we should trust or put strength in, that we should look at it and say, it's vulnerable, it's weak, it's frail, and it will die.

02:52

That's how we see our flesh. But the longer I thought about spiritual warfare and how Satan attacks us,

02:58

Satan wants to bolster us up. He wants us to find confidence in ourselves, because when we have confidence in ourselves, where do we not put our attention?

03:05

We don't look to Christ because we're doing well. We're staying focused.

03:11

It's that great quote by Spurgeon where he says, a child will wander from his father and let go of his hand when it doesn't see or hear the dog bark.

03:20

Why? Because they're feeling confident in themselves. But the moment the dog barks and they see how big it is, where do they run?

03:26

Right? Why? Because they're feeling insignificant and overpowered. Well, Satan wants us to feel significant and powerful.

03:33

And Jesus says, you are in me if you trust in me. But if you trust in yourself, Colossians, the end of Colossians chapter 2, has an appearance of wisdom, and it's self -made religion, but it's of no value of stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

03:47

Your flesh is going to win out. And so this is why Paul says, if you want to walk and not sin, he goes, you have to walk by the

03:53

Spirit, not the flesh. Well, to walk by the Spirit means you're putting your faith and trust in the power of the

04:00

Spirit, which is through the Word of God, and not in the power of your flesh. As I've pastored and preached, and I interact with people,

04:09

I tend to find that those who don't want to hear the gospel and hear about grace, those are the people who want me to give them means to just self -justify themselves, meaning that I am a good person because I have not done these sins, and I'm a good person because I'm disciplined in these areas.

04:27

Now, I'm a very disciplined man, I'm going to tell you that, I am. I work very hard. I have things in my life that I put in place because I know how weak

04:38

I am. I discipline myself, not in the ways in which you think, I discipline myself because I'm afraid that what

04:45

I might possibly do of how weak I am. So sometimes when people think me downplay discipline, they think

04:51

I'm saying, oh, live a life full of laziness and just let sin reign.

04:57

No, the exact opposite is true. But when it comes down to spiritual discipline or spiritual strength,

05:06

I find it interesting how when Paul describes a mature Christian, he describes them mature in their faith. Think about that for a moment.

05:14

Someone who's had the practice of believing. If you look at a bodybuilder, you don't describe him as strong in their faith.

05:25

Why? Because you can see the evidences of their own efforts, right? Someone who's strong in their faith means that they've had the practice putting their trust in something else.

05:34

That's what it means to be strong in your faith. Therefore, if you're putting your faith in something bigger than you and stronger than you, that means you're admitting your weakness.

05:43

And what I have found is the people that cause the most problems in churches and the people who are the most self -righteous and first to judge and cause strife are people who consider themselves to be strong.

05:54

They leave churches a lot. They bounce from one church to the next. And they often are like, well, that church is too weak or they can't handle how strong I am.

06:02

Which I think is funny because Romans 15 .1, you should go read it, Paul says, those of you who are strong have an obligation to deal with the failings of the weak.

06:10

I find that people who think they're strong in their faith have zero patience for people who are less than them.

06:16

They tend to be hypercritical. So I just, if you're listening to this podcast and you tend to find strength in what you are and what you do and your identity of what you have accomplished, man, you are being set up by Satan for a massive fall.

06:32

Because what he does is he blinds us with our pride. Pride is so blinding, we can't see it.

06:38

Because we begin to trust in our capacities. We're never to trust in our capacities for any reason.

06:46

And I know this, it sounds like I'm making exacting statements, but it's like, how else do you take a passage when it says, okay, he saves you by grace.

06:54

He sanctifies you by grace and he glorifies you by grace so that no one will boast. If you're going to boast, boast in the

06:59

Lord. That would mean you're powerless in your salvation. You're powerless to stay saved and you're powerless to make it to the end.

07:07

He preserves you. That sounds like weakness, which means there's two things that'll happen.

07:14

You're going to be beat down by your weakness and it's going to discourage you and you're going to want to feel like giving up because like,

07:19

I can't do this. And you're right, you can't. So the gospel comes in and what does it do? It empowers you.

07:24

It strengthens you. It reminds you to look outside of yourself and your capacities. But the gospel also humbles the pride, the prideful.

07:32

And I find at times those who are prideful don't want to hear the gospel. They'll tell me, John, you talk about grace too much.

07:40

You emphasize grace too much. And I've never really said this before, but I think

07:47

I'm going to say it now publicly. I think you trust in yourself too much.

07:53

If you think I emphasize grace too much, I don't think you're understanding the position that God has towards you.

08:01

I mean, 1 Peter 1 .9 is so fascinating to me. He does not equate disobedience because he's listing all these things that you should be doing and when you're not doing them, he doesn't say, oh, well, you're presuming on grace.

08:13

He says, you forgot why you do them. It's because of grace. Grace is what sets you free.

08:20

Grace is what causes the strength within you to obey. Pride and arrogancy and self -trust is what causes us to turn inward.

08:30

You know, I had to stop looking at the comments on our social medias. But on YouTube, it's interesting how many people quote the verse to self -examine ourselves.

08:40

I agree. You know what? I'm going to agree with these people. We need to examine ourselves more often. But I want you to do it in the way

08:47

God tells you to do it. I want you to do it the law. Not relativize it. Do it exactly as he tells you.

08:53

Let's start with the first one. Self -examination. I'll do it. You do it. Here we go. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

09:01

Don't relativize that. Not 50%, not 60%, all of it. I want you to answer me this question.

09:07

In the last week, last day, in the last hour, could you truly tell me that there was nothing more important to you than God?

09:20

Every single thought was captured for him. Every single desire. Every single act was all out of love for him.

09:28

Because if not, you have a lot to be ashamed of. And you really should wonder if you've ever loved

09:33

God. Because if you sin against him once, that's all it takes. You fail him one time.

09:39

You're done. So you either walk by the strength of self -examination or you walk by looking to Jesus.

09:46

I think Paul's point was, go examine yourself. See how well you last. Because you're not going to last very long.

09:53

You're doomed. But if you self -examine and go, yeah, it's by faith that I know that I should walk.

10:01

And it's by faith that I obey. It's impossible to please God. I think it's fascinating that Hebrews says that.

10:07

It's impossible to please God unless you do it by faith. Why? Because he's never going to accept your good works. Lord, I believe in Christ and I trust in him.

10:15

And it's with his righteousness I love you. And it's with his righteousness I'm going to obey you. And God says, now that's acceptable.

10:23

Now that's acceptable. But you're going to come to me with the law? And you're going to self -examine yourself with the law?

10:31

You're not going to make it. Well, then, John, are you saying that obedience isn't necessary? Oh, man, it is so necessary.

10:37

It is the most necessary thing. But I obey because God loves me.

10:44

And I obey because he's given me grace and strength. And when I don't obey, he's told me to, anytime

10:50

I can, anytime I need. Not can, anytime I need, I run into him and he forgives me.

10:56

You know, when he tells the disciples, you need to forgive each other. 70 times 7. Somehow we've lessened that for God, though.

11:03

But God only forgives you two times. Like, you can mess up twice for the same sin. But if you examine yourself, do you realize how many times a day you really fail?

11:12

If you're just, be honest with yourself. Do you really want to offer that to God? Or do you want to go to God and say,

11:17

Father, I trust you? And I am a weak man. I can't seem to string two righteous thoughts together, you know?

11:25

One has a weak faith and then one is completely a lie. To myself and to everybody else.

11:32

And what pulls me back? Son, you are forgiven. Look to my love. I think what's interesting is that God always uses love as the motivator.

11:43

As the way in which he draws us to him. Right? Here's one more verse

11:49

I think is interesting. He says, you love because I first loved you.

11:55

The greatest example of love is I laid my life down for you. I died for you. That's an example of love. And then he gathers believers together into these armies.

12:02

He calls them churches. And he goes, I want you to fight the desire to be individualistic.

12:08

And to become one. Because the spirit lives in you. And just go if you can. Go read Ephesians 4, 11 through 16.

12:13

And in that section, the last verse, he says, when you as a supernatural family.

12:21

When you work together. He says, when the body functions properly, it builds itself up.

12:27

Listen to this. Into love. It builds itself up in love. God's aim for the church is love.

12:35

Why? Because love is what fuels our obedience. And it's

12:41

God's love for us. It's not our love for him. So, it's so helpful because we are weak people.

12:47

God is not saying, it's your strength I rely on. It's my love for you.

12:53

And my grace for you. And my mercy for you is how you will survive.

13:00

So, for those, my brothers and sisters, who you find to trust in your own self -righteousness. Which you have and have not done.

13:06

With so much love and compassion. May I warn you. You're going to be humiliated.

13:13

God is not impressed with you. He never has and he never will be. But he loves you.

13:20

Oh, he loves you. So much, he says, that he'll use means. Like this podcast.

13:25

To discipline you. To pull you back. Like the sermon on Sundays. Like your brothers and sisters in Christ. At men's groups and women's groups.

13:33

And for those of you who are like, man. I don't even know how God could love me. I don't even know why

13:38

God wants me. Paul says, God chose the weak things of the world.

13:44

The things that are not. The things that are tossed aside. The people who consider themselves to be trash. God's grace reigns supreme upon you, dear friend.

13:53

He loves you. Not because you're lovable. He loves you because he chose to love you.

13:59

So, my encouragement to you in your weakness. Trust the Lord. Trust him.

14:05

And you will have a strength that you will not be able to explain. Because it's supernatural.

14:11

It's beyond explanation. This is why Paul says, I will suffer all things then.

14:17

Hardship. Betrayal. Spiritual attacks.

14:22

Because when I am weak, that's when I see the strength of my God. So, weakness is the new strength.