LP- His Strength in My Weakness

Cling to the cross, then put both arms around it. Hold to the crucified and never let him go. Come afresh to the cross at this moment and rest there now and forever. Then with the power of God resting upon you, go forth and preach the cross.

Hello, welcome to the Laborer's Podcast where we are laboring together in Word and in Doctrine. My name is Tyler and I'm here with Rob and we are doing a little different kind of program today. It's just the two of us dialoguing.

Usually Rob is kind of steering the ship, but today it's me, so we may run the ship into the ground. I don't know. But we're gonna be talking about God's strength in the midst of our weakness. Stay tuned.

Welcome to the Laborer's Podcast, which is a part of the Truth in Love Network. Join us as together we strive to grow up together in all things into Christ. Subscribe and follow the Truth in Love Network on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and iTunes.

Now let's join our laborers for tonight's broadcast.

God's Strength Beyond Our Understanding

All right, all right. So it is me and Rob today. How are you doing today, Rob?

I'm doing good. I'm tired, as always, but I'm thankful to be tired. I want to have that frame of mindset where I'm thankful to be tired because things could always be worse, you know? Things could always be worse.

And I think that's, to me, in my mind, one of the directions that we could go tonight in the conversation that you wanna take us. It could be so much worse, and I could have the inability to have motor skills and work, so I wanna be thankful.

I'm tired, I'm sore, but I wanna be thankful for what God has given me the ability to do. And he's really taking care of us and blessed us. So I wanna give him praise, and I wanna be thankful for that.

How are you doing?

I'm having a good day.

Good, good.

Nothing quite so grandiose and eloquent, but it's been a good day. But tonight's topic is God's strength in the midst of our weakness. And I guess as a jumping off point here, I have no reference point in front of me whatsoever, so I'm coming up with these questions kinda on the fly.

But when you hear that phrase, his strength and my weakness, what comes to mind for you?

Words, I'm big on words. And Tyler, if you're gonna ask me questions, then I'm gonna be bouncing off the wall and go everywhere tonight. Just because

That's fine.

I'm thinking about responding to, or I'm thinking about how I want to respond, how I want to consider, because I do a podcast with Dan, and he is Presbyterian, and so he's coming at covenant theology differently than I am as a Reformed Baptist, and you as well.

More of a Presbyterian, I think, perspective on covenant theology. So he's giving me verses, trying to help me understand where they get their understanding of covenant, covenant doctrines and covenants from a Presbyterian, more Presbyterian perspective, the true Reformed guys.

And so, as I'm thinking through those verses that he's giving me to think through, part of my response, of course, I'm thinking like a podcaster, like how can I respond to this? And I do it in a one video, one article, three videos, and I was thinking, one video, like a part one, would be words, like definitions.

What do we mean by covenant? What do we mean by baptism? What does baptism mean? How does that help us understand the context of the verse? Just words and definitions and word pictures, and see if that helps navigate the direction of the conversation and our understanding of covenant and baptism.

Of course, the conversation there is gonna be talking about credo believers baptism or credo infant baptism. So how do words and definitions play into this? And so when you ask me the question, his strength and our weaknesses, to me, because that's where my mind is right now, thinking about the individual words, we're talking about God and who he is.

To the best of our ability with our finite, limited mind, understanding who God is in scripture and how he describes himself. And in that, we know that he is beyond our comprehension in power, in love, in purpose, in being, in essence, in nature.

Everything about God is beyond our comprehension, which even that, I'm sure you've heard the conversation that if we knew everything about God, then we would be God ourselves. And there has to be distance between us and our knowledge of God to be the God that we know in scripture.

So we have a God that is beyond us. And so that includes his strength. And when we think about strength, we think about physical strength, being able to lift a certain amount of weight, run a certain distance, run a certain speed.

When we think about God's strength, we tie that into understanding who he is. So his strength, being one of his attributes, is going to be beyond our understanding. And that's the place where I would start in my mind is the strength of our God is beyond our understanding.

So not in weakness, but the dunamis of God, the power and the strength of God is beyond our understanding. So therefore, that puts the second part of your question or your phrase completely in a position where it doesn't really, to a degree it matters, but it's not as big of a deal anymore because of the God that we know and his strength and what we know about his strength because of his character and nature.

And so my weakness, to whatever degree that it is weak, is not in comparison to the strength of our God. And again, that goes back to the perspective that praise the Lord, the Holy Spirit, allowed me to have in this moment, thinking about being tired, but yet why am I tired?

Because he has given me motor skills and the ability to work. And that's why I'm tired, that's why I'm sore. Sometimes that's why I have bloodshot eyes and not enough sleep, but it's because he has given me the ability to do these things.

And there I find where I'm weak, but yet I should look back to have that appropriate perspective, look back on who he is and what that says about his strength and how that covers any weakness that I may have.

Does that make sense?

Perspective on Weakness, Suffering, and Contentment

Yes, as you were walking through that, I was reminded of a passage in Ecclesiastes 7, which is one of my favorite verses in the Bible, when Solomon says, consider the work of God for who can make that straight, which he has made crooked.

And what challenges me in that verse is the recognition that there are times where God makes things crooked and it's okay. And I think that's kind of what you were hitting on was that there's a blessing in being tired.

There's a blessing in being spent at the end of a workday.

It's all about perspective. It's all about perspective. And maybe this ties into the passage that says to us, I will set my eyes on things above. Does that mean in this context, I'm saying, woe is me, and I'm looking at my weaknesses or am I setting my eyes on things above?

And that's taking my eyes off my weaknesses and putting them and resting them on the strength of a God who loves us. Let me turn down my phone. I usually do that, Tyler.

I haven't heard it yet.

Okay, good.

That means I have a good mic. Praise the Lord for that.

So what does that look like in your line of work?

In my line of work, I have also battled, which I don't know if there's any statistics out there, but I can imagine, Tyler, that it's, in my opinion, I would say that it's worse than probably what is advertised, but I feel like I have heard people talk about it more recently than I have before.

And I think in recent generations past, there was a sense of how in our time, you had this idea of trying to figure out if we're complementarian, egalitarian, and biblical manhood or biblical womanhood, and the counsel for biblical manhood or womanhood, and defining all those things.

In a couple generations past, there was something about my grandparents,.

My great-grandparents,.

They didn't have those things, but there was a sense of this is what a man is, this is what a woman is. And when it comes to being a man, you, there was a sense of being cuffed and not showing your emotions.

And that's where they were. That was the culture. That's what they did. So maybe not so much in that time period, even though I think it still existed. And what I'm trying to get at is suffering from anxiety or depression or whatever other synonyms you can think of, but anxiety and depression and how you handle that.

I have dealt with that in this later part of my life, not so much earlier on, but in the later portion of my life that I've lived thus far, I have dealt with anxiety and depression and it has affected my workplace and my mentality in my workplace.

And I've also been mostly involved in physical labor type jobs. So especially getting older, I'm not as in shape as I once was. And partly I'm still the age, Tyler, where I could go to the gym and try to find a point where I probably can't be as in shape as I was when I was in my early 20s, but I could probably get in a little better shape and feel better because I was working out, but we don't do that sometimes and we don't make the time or have the time to do that.

But as I'm getting older, you get sore more quickly, you get tired more quickly. So that's been my scenario in where I work is the physical weakness and then the mental weakness. So I've had to deal with that and having this perspective has helped me to face these, forgive me, I wanna say face these giants, but I shouldn't say that.

Hi, Troy.

What up, Troy? Come on on, brother.

It says, do you think the abuses to the body and manual labor aids to the depression if weighed in that, that is what is required to pay the bills? And how do we stay positive on those days? And he's a concrete worker, so he's probably in the same vein of what you're talking about.

Can you put that up one more time?

Yeah.

Do you think the abuses to the body and manual? You know, I wanna lean toward no a little bit, Troy, only because if you go to a counselor with anxiety or depression, I think if they're anything worth their salt, of course, they're gonna lead you to Christ.

They're gonna point you to scripture, but also on a practical level, one of the first things before you stream toward the prescription center, they're gonna say, have you been outside? Have you taken a walk?

Have you gotten any sun lately? So they're going to encourage someone who's having anxiety or depression to get some physical activity, to get some sunshine, some vitamin D. And so, and I think that there's a lot of wisdom in that, because

See, in Gen Z, we call that go touch grass.

Go touch grass. Yeah, if you need to do that, yeah, because you think about, not only around Christmas and the holidays is the suicide rate and all those things up. It's up because it's maybe a depressing holiday because loved ones have passed on.

The family dynamic is not the same anymore. There's lots of reasons for depression around the holidays, but also it's wintertime in many places. Well, at least in our hemisphere, it's wintertime. And so it's cold, it's cloudy, you're inside more often, and you lose that vitamin D, you lose that exercise.

So there's where you have that anxiety wanting to creep back in, depression wanting to creep back in. And so I think there's something to that. Now, if the manual labor leads to where you are laid, I don't know what generation I am.

Whatever generation I am, we call it getting laid up because you can't work anymore. You laid up in the bed and you can't work anymore. That's what we call it. Um, then you're stuck inside and the anxiety wants to creep back in, the depression wants to creep back in.

And so I think there's that aspect. Generation Dinosaur.

What?

Oh, I see you with your pilgrim outfit on. Are you trying to be in my generation?

Generation Dinosaur. I don't think that's the term for it.

What?

Gen D.

Gen D.

Come on, Troy, you're making it interesting. Let's have some more questions. Or pop on with us because you are a laborer, brother. But you've done your own podcast, you've labored already at work and you've already labored on your podcast and that would pull off, so you should get some rest too.

Anxiety, Depression, and the Discipline of Rest

Well, I know that one time I went to a conference at Bob Jones University a couple years ago and Paul Washer was speaking there. Still to this day I'm amazed that Paul Washer got to speak at Bob Jones University.

But he was telling the story in one of his sessions that he had a lady outside the conference center stop him and ask him what advice he had about overcoming anxiety. And he said, and my response was that that is still my greatest struggle.

And that was something that Paul Washer even said, I have not conquered that dragon yet. And just listening to you break down the idea of being thankful you're tired and the perspective you're trying to have, I get the impression that's something you had to fight for.

And I guess where my head is, is what was the trigger for that transition?

Tyler, that's a tough question. I'm right off the cuff. And I don't want this to sound any other way than sincere and gratefulness because I know not everybody has had the perspective that I've had, but I'm grateful.

I mean, you think about, I mean, you have a household of siblings. I grew up with a sibling. There are many households have siblings and in each household, the parents, you don't know. You have to be honest.

You don't know which direction your child is going to go. And if the Lord is going to call them and they respond, and then even if there's a profession, how they will live after that, will they fall away or they just be casual nonchalant?

Professors that it didn't stick. They were one of the other souls that they were taken up and thrown away. My whole life, I enjoyed going to church. I enjoyed hearing my grandfather and my uncle, who was a pastor at the time, hearing them discuss his sermons and discuss doctrine.

And I remember my grandfather just grilling him about some of the things that he said and how encouraged I was and how much it encouraged me to want to know what they were talking about, know God's word the way they did.

And as a teenager, when many of my classmates were doing, who knows what, I don't know what all, many of my classmates did, I would pick up my grandmother and we would go to revival services. I would pick her up and take her to revival services because I enjoyed hearing preaching.

I enjoyed being in the service and singing. That's what I enjoyed doing. But my life has not been without failures and major sins and fallbacks and setbacks in my life. So I want there to be a reality in my testimony.

So I think knowledge of the kindness of God, His ability to be my strength when I'm weak has always been there. It's been when I've had to see if that had really taken hold and planted and had any roots in my heart, if that makes sense.

And there have been really difficult seasons in my life, really, really difficult seasons in my life where I had to see if that seed had been planted and rooted and if I could hold on to that perspective that God is true, that God is strong and I can trust and rely on Him.

That part, because you think about it like a storm, Tyler, you're going through tribulation and you are this seed that has been planted and you believe that you're growing roots and you are growing tall as this new plant in Christ.

And yet these winds are trying to blow you down and uproot you and destroy you. And the battle comes when you're facing those winds that are trying to push you over and put you in the woodpile. Folks, men on this earth want you to fall.

They want to see you fall. They want to see you hurt. They want to see you be cut up and used in the fire and be done away with. But that's where the place, I don't know if it was so much as a point in time where it became a reality.

It was just a perspective that I always had, but it was when those winds came that I had to see if it was a true reality in my life. And I'm thankful that it was. And I'm thankful that he planted himself in my life and my heart.

And I was able to withstand the schemes of man and the fiery darts of Satan. And again, I don't want to give any misconceptions. Terrible periods of moments of sin in my life. I don't want to give any misconception.

I'm a sinful man, simple person with a sinful heart that's only clean because it's seen in the righteousness of Christ. Other than that, I'm no good. So it's him who's given me the perspective. It was him who held me in the storm and grew those roots.

And I'm thankful, truly, truly thankful.

Well, thank you for sharing that.

Yeah.

What up, Troy?

What up? What up? Y 'all done summoned me back on. Yeah, see, I'm getting gin dinosaur too, all right? That's back there.

Tell Ms. Dickerson we appreciate it.

I will, I will. She was like, I know you're tired. You just ate, but you know, cause I ran home straight from work and it was like running the podcast. I was like, I ain't got it in me tonight. We got a big pour tomorrow.

So I was trying to get just that, when someone's, you know, as a brother, just cause, you know, I deal with this as well, just jumping right in of just, you know, you come home at the end of the day, you're beat all the pieces, you know, you've done worked a 12, 13 hour day, you know, whole family's riding on you, you know, as far as, you know, okay, we're dependent to pay this rent that's coming up.

You know, this is the way that for some reason I chose to make my living and, you know, just that thought process of, man, why did I pick this? How do I keep myself going? And of course it's knowing that when we are weak, you know, our strength comes from him, but yeah.

And so that was what I was just wanting to see how you, you know, how do you respond to those days? And I agree, I agree wholeheartedly cause I've also worked those jobs where you're stuck inside all day, like all day, like in a, you know, what feels like a dungeon, no windows, no nothing, just a machine in front of you.

I saw you just did a pour in a cookie factory.

Yeah, yeah, I was in a cookie factory. That messed with me cause I came outside and then noticed it was pitch black and I was like, oh goodness, yeah, this is, yeah, that's irregular that I work in cookie factories.

They don't seem to need much concrete around here. I did get some free cookies. That was pretty good, but yeah, no, that was lame. I didn't get home till 1130 last night. But yeah, but you know, that's the days, you know.

Christ Our Sufficiency in Weakness

Here's a place where I think we could dive into. And I think if we could come up with a good conclusion, I know you guys would help me on this, but this verse seems to be touching on what we've been talking about.

Second Corinthians 12, nine through 10. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. So we've kind of covered that. That's what we've been talking about.

But then here's the tough part. He says, therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses. Now, this is what I think about, just being open, transparent, and in this moment, where's my weakness right now in this moment?

So confessional, we're fostering. And so, you know, we're having to take care of the kids. And you talk about coming home from a long day's work and you know what I want to do? I want to crash. I want to crash on the couch.

I want to do nothing. I'm tired. And, you know, there's aspects of evening routines that you have to do to help take care of these children. And I'm like, oh, really? I just want to go sit on the couch.

It's time for, you know, this again, it's time for that again. And so there's my weakness. It's a poor attitude. I'm complaining. I'm not being glad about my weakness. I'm complaining about my weakness, that I want to be self-centered instead of serving.

So how do we get to that point? How do we, like Tyler was my transition, how do we transition from complaining about our weakness, boasting all the more gladly about my weakness?

I think this is just a verse that helps me. And while it's not necessarily about our weaknesses, but it is about, it's Philippians 4 .13. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And while that is often way overused for a lot of things, what Paul's talking about is he's talking about, of course, giving from Philippians, right?

And then he goes into, I'm called therewith to be content, no matter what, whether abound or abased, right? Whether I'm in well-off, money-wise, financial-wise, that's the specific context. The financial provision, whether I have a lot of money or whether I have no money, I'm called to be content.

I can do all things through Christ, right? And so really the point of that is that Christ is our sufficiency, and that's the point. And so whatever situation the Lord has us in right now, whether it be working for the county, working concrete work, working in a Christian bookstore, in that situation, we are called to be content because Christ will get us through it.

He is sufficient in that situation, regardless of what it may be, Christ is always sufficient in it to help us, to give us the strength to provide. And I'm not sure if maybe I just derailed that a little bit, right?

It's definitely not the best context, but I do think about that verse a lot whenever it comes to contentment. I'm called therewith to be content.

The Holy Spirit Uses Scripture in Different Ways

I wanna say something about God's strength and the strength of the Holy Spirit that I just thought about, and it kinda speaks to our peers in theology and podcasting and some of the things we may have heard.

But maybe, I don't know if you guys have heard this, like I've heard this, but some people wanna talk about we don't always need to be so academic. We don't need to be studying theology. There's these people who care less about theology, about this doctrine, and they just want practical things, and they're never gonna care about this than the other.

So, but you have people who are more geared towards studying scripture that way. And in my perspective, the Holy Spirit is strong enough because we're all men here. We're all human beings. And there's, to a degree, commonality because of that amongst all of us, right?

So we experience and we face very similar things day to day, whether we're in South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, whatever state you're in, even in a different country, because we're men, because we're humans, there's a commonality of face, a lot of the same things.

And if we have the same Holy Spirit within us, even though we study scripture from a theological academic perspective, guess what? That same Holy Spirit, He is strong enough to take something that you studied even though academically and use it practically in your life to fight depression or anxiety.

He can use scripture how he wants to. It's just a matter of, it doesn't matter how you got it in there. He's the one in there using it. And He's strong enough to take it. You know, some of our personalities are more academic, are more theological and doctrinal centered and focused.

And that's okay. That's how God made us. But the Holy Spirit is strong enough and He is fully capable of taking His word that you put in there and use it how He wants to to help you face your weakness.

Amen.

So we don't always have to use scripture with someone else in mind as we study it. The Holy Spirit will recall what you put in your heart to help someone else. Because even if we tried, we can never study scripture perfectly enough to say I'm studying it in such a way that it's gonna be applicable to my situation over here to help these people.

We're not that wise. Only Holy Spirit is that wise. And so however you get it in there, I think God is calling us to get it in there and He'll use it. Does that make sense? Was I off base there a little bit?

Perfectly clear. I've been just enjoying this.

I like it.

Good.

I didn't wanna offend anybody that I've had that conversation with because I totally understand where they're coming from. And I wanna hear more about their perspective, especially when it comes to topics that we discuss.

And I want it to be useful. I don't want it to be unuseful. And that's kind of why I retracted. We were gonna talk about Nimrod tonight. He's so obscure.

How did that come up in the first place?

Well, I have been listening a little bit to Onyx Cosmos.

Oh, no.

What's the other one? There's another one that's somewhat similar.

You know what you're talking about? I can't remember what it's called either.

Spencer Smith did an entire documentary on it. It's called the Third Adam Series. And I wanna say it was like Third Adam Two or something like that. They're kind of cringy or whatever. I like Spencer Smith.

I think he's a good brother. He's fun for me to watch. He's independent fundamentalist. But some of those, they're a little out there. They're extra dispy. Extra dispy.

I was gonna say.

But you know.

It's almost Alex Jones dispensationalism.

Alex Jones.

He's, yeah.

Good comparison.

But yeah. And so it's interesting.

But.

When his first one come out, I had somebody message me and they're like, have you seen this? You need to watch this. You need to watch this. You know, the big warning. The end is coming. The end is near.

Here's all the conspiracy theories and I'm tying them all together.

See, there was a point where people were.

My family sent me all of his videos and they were like, you guys gotta go watch this. And whenever he did the debate with Keith Foskey, I was like, you guys gotta watch this debate. Your boy's in it. You know, your boy's in it.

My boy's in it. We're, you know. It's gonna be a good one. And that was actually a cool thing that I've used to talk to them a little more about stuff.

But.

Yeah, Nimrod's not exactly a practical matter.

No.

But I think what you were getting at with some people being more wired for the practicality and others being wired more for like systematic theology, I think kind of in another sense leads into what we're talking about with weaknesses and diversity in the body.

Because we're going to have different strengths. We're going to have different weaknesses. And all of that is going to be part of how we're knit together in Christ. You know, we're a pretty diverse group of brothers in the Truth and Love Network.

And we're not all systematic theologians. We're not all this. We're not all that. And that kind of works in our favor. I'm really excited for when that plays out with us working through Luke 9 together from our different preferences, from our different perspectives, from our different isms.

We're gonna have Baptists, Pentecostals, and Presbyterians, and whatever else preach in the same chapter for three days. It's gonna be awesome. And it just goes to show that God is building a diverse body with different strengths, different weaknesses, different niches.

And it's all for His kingdom. It's all for what He is building, not for our platforms, not for our brands, but for Him.

That and going back to the point of the systematic theology guy, right? Some guys' heads are wired that way. It should, like any study of the Bible, of doctrine, of anything, should have an application in your life.

Like if it's not, you know, if you're reading the Institutes of the Christian Religion, which I have not, you know, or run down the list, and it's not actually being applied in your life, you're not able to see something, then, you know, that's, it's not supposed to be head knowledge.

You know, it's not just a head knowledge thing of like, look, I know this, and this, and this, and this, and this. Like, no, at some point, it's gotta hit your heart and then go out from there. You know, especially the clear messages of grace in the New Testament.

You know, a lot of us, you know, a lot of brothers will, they could tell you, you know, about quote you Romans, you know, the entire way through, but yet really miss out on forgiveness, really miss out on, you know, building grace and peace inside the local body of believers, which is a sad fact.

And that might be where our weakness lies. You know, we're, God has made us geared toward the certain type and desire of study, of scripture, perspective, style, whatever it may be. But then all of a sudden here in your life is somebody who is totally different in their perspective and their need.

And you didn't prepare for that in your academic studies, but guess what? The Holy Spirit is able to use his word in your life to meet that person's need with the gospel, with your hands and feet. He's able to do that in your weakness in that area.

And isn't that amazing? And Tyler, I was just thinking about something that you said and I've said it, I've said it and thought it in a very similar way too, but I thought about it in a different perspective now I'm hearing you say it.

We're looking at the Truth and Love Network and the Laborers Conference and what God is doing in us, bringing all these different perspectives and folks from different places. But in reality, it's not that he's doing something unique.

He's already said in his word, he is drawing all men to himself. He's drawing all nations will stream to him from every tribe, tongue and nation, from every stripe, every branch of denomination. And so he is already building a people from himself that think differently than each other.

It's almost as if the Holy Spirit is allowing us here to open our eyes to that and say, we just want to be where God is and what he's doing. He's building a kingdom. He's calling men to his self and they're different.

And we just want to align ourselves with who God is and what he's doing. And I'm thankful for you guys. I'm thankful for everybody that God is bringing together to do that with me and minister together from that perspective.

It's awesome. As Tyler would say, awesome.

I can pour on the accent when it is useful. Funny thing is I was born in Indiana, so it is not natural. What do you think, Troy?

When I think about the group, obviously I think if God has put someone into his kingdom, accepted him into the kingdom of his dear son, then who are we to kick him out? And that's something beautiful.

It takes sanctification. It takes a lot of grace applied, not just talked about, not just this, but to go and be, okay, well, I see this brother's point. And when you're not dealing with people that are just all in agreement to just agree, then you have to work through these things.

And I think it's beautiful. I think it's beautiful. From the first time I set foot in the conference, as I watched the preaching go on and as I enjoyed the fellowship, one point in time I was moved to tears.

This was before I was a laborer. This was before I knew any of these guys personally. And man, what a blessing the conference was to me to see everybody just enjoying Christ, preach, not a single thing.

I was kind of guarded. I'm like, oh, what in the world, what do you mean? We got a Presbyterian and a Pentecostal preaching in this church. You know, what in the world? I'm gonna have to start grabbing rocks with religious intent.

But yet not one thing was said that I couldn't amen and just praise God for. And the impact that that's had on me was of it. Y 'all need to buy laborers tickets. Actually, technically they're free. We're just giving these things away.