A need for weakness

To start off, and to get you saturated into the subject matter, here are some short but very relevant clips:

You are TOO strong (6: 24 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlCGdm6MocI

This is one of my favorite sermon clips (2:58 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBYsWwk2410

We need weak men and women (1:13 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im3MbJaiXf8

In preaching we have so much weakness (3:04 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QiykX8AP6U

Sharing your faith... and weakness (4:14 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2sd7RrpccQ


Mark 2:17
English Standard Version (ESV)
17 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The church is not a display for the righteous; but a hospital to the poor, sick, needy, and thirsty of heart.  And oh am I thankful, what a pitiful man I am without Jesus, what a broad-shouldered savior I have.

Our westernized and independent culture teaches us that we need to be self-reliant.  We often even see more women in church than we often see of men, why?  Our culture teaches men that masculinity means not having to say sorry, not being weak or regretful, but self-dependent, and stoic/emotionless.  A strong man in the world is much more willing to fight than to lay down his life for another.

Proverbs 16:32

English Standard Version (ESV)

32 Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
    and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

But scripture is clear that Godly strength is not self-reliant but weak.

2 Corinthians 12:9-11

English Standard Version (ESV)

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God's power is made "PERFECT" in our weakness.  Do you view your own weakness in this way?

God defined strength is weakness.  Its all upside down!
Why is it strength to be weak?
1.)  God's power is glorified because it is shown to be sufficient for your weakness.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBYsWwk2410 (2:58 min.)
2.)  We can do nothing by our own power so when we are in Christ we can be full of power from Him.
3.)  It takes strength to stand out from the pack and to be eaten alive by the hearts of men.
4.)  Everyone in reality is weak, so the only ones who do not admit that they are weak are in fact the weakest because their pride holds them back from admitting reality.  The strongest are those who in their humility can admit the breadth of weakness that
5.)  When you are "strong" you steal from the glory that is not rightfully yours.  You take glory for your power which was in fact given to you.  So it is true strength to give that up to God because you are fighting for His glory.
6.)  If a king has warriors, to serve the king is an incredible and righteous honor.  There is no greater honor than to be esteemed and loved by the king.  If the king knights you and calls attention to his warrior then you are the epitome of strong.  Yet when people do not recognize their weakness what they are doing is calling themselves kings, as though they have power.  Instead we should see ourselves as servants only doing what the master orders.  But even of earthly kings, being a servant to one who is so high and being a soldier of a great king is an amazing and indescribable honor.  Think of how much greater this is to be servant, messenger and warrior for the greatest king in all limits of existence and beyond.  So how do we glory in weakness?  Because you are a fighter to the allegiance of the Most High King.  There is no greater honor to man.  To admit and own your weakness before God and to be armored and trained by Him instead flips upside down and makes you into mighty warrior.  How backwards, yet how beautiful and true.  Why serve a lesser king, why make ourselves kings?


When you take the reigns of self-reliance... you are really doing this:

And then your sin and satan comes by and goes... oh look at that haha:


                          SMASH!!                          

We are like Nibbles from Tom and Jerry trying to fight back a Satan who is much bigger than us, sin that is much bigger than us, and a world to which we have no power:

Psalm 95:6-7

English Standard Version (ESV)

6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
    let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
7 For he is our God,
    and we are the people of his pasture,
    and the sheep of his hand.

The image of falling down and bowing before the king remind me of the scene in Lord of the Rings where they bowed before king Theoden of Rohan (one of the last kingdoms of man left on the earth), here is a scene where he is restored, it gives me goosebumps--notice the bowing to honor his majesty and rule:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KK2hN_MYuI

And in movies like starwars, the apprentices bow to their masters.  We have a great master to whom trains us and teaches us.

Malachi 1:6

English Standard Version (ESV)

6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’
(note by dude: Now that we are in the new testament there is no need for priests anymore because we have Christ... but pastors and priests are different things.)

But are we not powerless to change our lives apart from Christ, or powerless to work?  Grima Wormtongue and his deceitful lies seem to remind me of demons and Saruman as a higher authority (scripture does say that there are authorities and rulers, Eph. 6:12) and Sauron as Satan himself.  Though in this clip he is telling the truth about us... like gandalf we now have Christ living in us and we can do all things as Philippians says through Him who strengthens us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBGWtVOKTkM


  Its not... I can do a bunch of stuff in my own strength that God provided and so you shape everything now start working your hardest.



And think... we are to be glorified one day and given CROWNS... we are so unworthy (no wonder people will cast their crowns before Jesus in great numbers).  RW Glenn once asked in a study on Hosea (http://christmycovenant.com/?p=10032  it is a good read!), if we are offended by God's righteous judgment and the idea of eternal hell and the brutality of it... but then he asked, if you are as offended by the idea of God's mercy?  It should offensive just to think about.  It truly is startling that even though Jesus has sufficiently bought everything for us, that in the end he honors us.  Even his honor is a gift.  Our works were all gifts so how can we receive any credit whatsoever.  The truth is the credit isn't ours and yet we are loved, honored, and cherished.  It reminds me of this final scene where the true king is finally restored (remind you of something!?) and the hobbits are honored:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URmQXIeVpN8

Now do we deserve to be bowed to more than Jesus BY NO MEANS, certainly every knee will be bowed to Jesus and not to us.  But this still expresses this same scandal that Jesus, the rightful deserving king, would give crowns to and honor his servants.  Praise be to God:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URmQXIeVpN8

The crazy thing about this scene is that we are the image of the fighters/friends and the wife.  We are the bride of Christ and the friend of Christ.  If you do not think of yourself being bowed to but rather think of this scene in terms of God's glory and how he glorifies us though we are undeserving this can bring you to tears.  Do you know who you are oh son or daughter of God, don't you know that we will judge angels?

A warrior bride we are!
  

We are at war




Before we become a warrior of God's we surrender before Him:

Luke 14:25-34

English Standard Version (ESV)

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

                      (only 2 mins.)                                          

And none of us have enough to follow Him.  We must surrender!  Wave the white flag... I can't do it!
This is how we join this king's army. His terms, are to give up our very lives for Him because He is a worthy treasure above and worth everything.  Give up, quit working by your own strength.

We often make a huge deal out of the fact that Peter denied Jesus 3X's and certainly this is a huge deal!!  It ought to be made a huge deal of, especially at his crucifixion, and having spent so much time with him.  But how can we read this and distance ourselves and make the same mistake that peter made. As Peter told Christ that he could never deny Him, but do we not act as though we could never do this either.  But apart from the grace of God and His sustaining power--we are just as susceptible.  By God's mercy we are kept from doing this.  And by Jesus' mercy so was Peter kept by God, because he had prayed for Peter that he would not lose faith.

Luke 22:32

English Standard Version (ESV)

32 but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

Jesus expected his fall and even said it would happen before it did, then he prayed for his ability to repent back to Him.  Like us, God knows our faults before they come and is already calling us back and strengthening us.  And those of us who are in Him and do indeed come back have already been forgiven.

 But we think to ourselves I would never do what Peter did though.  But how many times do we deny him seemingly subtly around others when we downplay how much Jesus means to us in front of others, as though he is just an ornament in our lives instead of the very sustenance of our lives.  How often does this happen?!  You aren't even being threatened by the worst torture known to man and we do this in the pettiest of things.  You may have denied Jesus hundreds of times more than peter without even realizing it.  Now it is important for me to make a distinction between ultimately denying Him and doing so as a sin that is not of our desire but something we have repented of.  When we deny Jesus in front of others he says that we will be denied by Him ultimately.  But why did he not do so to Peter?  Because he sinned, he actually truly was one of God's children and the proof of this was that he was repentant.  But to live a life of denying Christ even in the more subtle way could reveal something in your heart... either you are embarrassed and ashamed of the gospel to which Paul said that he was NOT ASHAMED of the gospel because it is the power of life.  Or you do not actually love Christ and have not actually changed by His power... or you do not fear him which could be a sign of not knowing him, or you have sinned and truly do love Christ and therefore it breaks your heart and if you had the power you would always never deny him even in the subtlest of ways.  So you are growing unto holiness and growing in not even in the slightest denying him.  But we should fear denying Christ before others, he used very strong language about such a thing.  Nonetheless, if you have, like Peter--He strengthens his children unto the end and he can take you back and is calling out to you--come back.  Or perhaps you are already back to Him and are covered in shame--if you are shrouded in shame, know that he has bore into himself even our GUILT.  You may say, how so?  Did you know that there used to be a guilt offering that was done distinctly and separately from the sin offering?  Jesus' sacrifice covered our guilt as well as our sin.  He was the ultimate sacrifice.  What a loving God we have.



We have a need for reliance:




But do not forget where that resilience comes from...

John 15:5

English Standard Version (ESV)

5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.