Boast In My Weakness

Good morning.

Lord is in this place.

The worship team didn't know what I'd be talking about.

I didn't know what they would be bringing to us.

I'm just trying to honor the sense of his presence right now.

He's orchestrating something for us here today.

It's just beautiful.

Thank you, worship team.

I thank you for your sensitivity to lead us into this place.

And he said his flight was canceled, and he wasn't going to be able to be here.

And um so I asked him, uh, did you check the bus schedule?

He said, I did.

I'll be there in three and a half days.

So we knew that wasn't going to work.

Uh so he asked me if I would share this morning, and I'm delighted to be able to share something that I believe cracks the code for the Lord's presence.

You know how during times of war there were codes that needed to be cracked in order to know what to do.

And in our walk with him, there he's given us ways to access his presence.

He's given us a way to know him and to receive him and to walk with him and to live with him.

And the apostle Paul tells us how we can do that.

And so I'm gonna I'm gonna just read that scripture, but the way I want to set this scripture up is I want to talk about to help us understand.

Have you ever been in a job interview and they ask you two questions?

And the first one is, what is your greatest strength?

Well, I'm glad you asked.

You know, here is somebody you want to hire you and pay you, and you know, your livelihood can depend upon this.

So you're happy to be able to tell them how good you are at things.

Right?

Well, I'm really um, you know, a good, I would be a good employee because, you know, uh I have a lot of education.

You tell them all your education, you tell them your experience, you you know, you want to build yourself up, right?

Sure.

And then they ask you this question what is your greatest weakness?

And you're thinking, I'm not telling you.

You think I'm gonna sit here and tell you my weaknesses?

I want you to hire me.

I want you to think how great I am.

I don't want to tell you how weak I am.

I don't want to tell you where I have struggle.

Think of that in terms of introducing yourself to another person you've never met before.

Hi, I'm Walt.

And then you like to let them know eventually in your conversation all your experience or your education, or you know, you're trying to find ways to impress them, right?

You've never done that.

Hopefully, I don't do that now, but I remember when I was younger being insecure, feeling inferior.

I'm a farm kid from Indiana, you know.

There's not a lot to boast about being a farm kid from Indiana.

And you certainly don't tell them your weaknesses, do you?

Hi, I'm Walt.

I'm a judgmental person.

You know, you don't launch into, you don't tell them your weaknesses.

You you hide that.

But the title of this message is Boast in Your Weakness.

We don't do that, do we?

We don't boast in our weakness.

We want to boast in our strengths.

Can I get an amen?

So the Apostle Paul touches this idea when he says in 2 Corinthians 12, 7 through 9, he became aware of his weakness.

Not his strength, but his weakness.

And he became aware of it through his health challenges, we see here.

He says, thorn in the flesh is what he calls it.

He says, even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God, so to keep me from becoming what?

Proud.

I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from being what?

Proud.

I guess he's the only one that's had to deal with that issue, right?

Three times I begged the Lord to take it away.

Each time he said, My what grace is what?

All you need.

My grace is all you need.

And then he says, My power works best in weakness.

So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ can work through me.

Now, when I first read this as a young believer, I thought, I don't get this at all.

There is no, I don't understand how me being weak is what could turn out to be something to make me strong in the Lord.

That just doesn't compute to me.

You know, you as a young believer, you think, if I can just learn enough, if I can read enough Bible, if I can pray enough, if I can, and those things are all that.

Go to church.

I mean, that's important.

We need that, but we have this idea, somehow I'm going to build up my strength because of what I know and what I've experienced.

But he's saying, no, no, no, no.

It's actually the other way.

It's getting in touch with your weaknesses that positions you to receive his strength.

Can I get an amen on that?

You see, our tendency is to curse the weakness.

I'll call it our humanness.

Instead of acknowledging it and asking for his strength.

Let me say that again.

This is a key.

This is where we're going.

Our tendency is to curse our weaknesses, our humanness, instead of acknowledging it and asking for strength.

So when we fail, you know, instead of acknowledging it, Lord, I just failed right here, I'm weak.

I have limitations.

There's a humanness about me that, you know, I just, I'm not strong enough to do this.

And by the way, when you go through the scripture and you see all those people that we really celebrate their uh victories in the Lord, and they become heroes of the faith, you have to go back to their story, which is they started from a place of I can't do this.

It's too much, it's overwhelming, it's impossible.

Isn't that true?

It is impossible without God.

It's impossible without his strength.

Another amen.

Second Corinthians 12, 10.

That's why I pleasure in my weaknesses.

How much time have you spent sitting in your quiet place, just pleasuring in your weaknesses?

Ah, thank you, Lord.

I am such a judgmental person.

Thank you, Lord.

I am weak.

I have all these thoughts that I shouldn't have.

I have these attitudes.

I have these people I can't forgive.

Oh, I pleasure in that.

Right?

He said, I pleasure in my weaknesses and in insults and hardships and persecutions and troubles.

And we all, we know that.

We we understand that.

He says, that I suffer for Christ, for when I am weak, then I am strong.

Now the first time I read that, I thought, that doesn't make sense.

It just doesn't make sense to me.

For when I'm weak, then I'm strong.

What's he talking about?

He's saying that when you acknowledge the things in you, whether it's physical, emotional, whatever it is, when you acknowledge those things and own it, just own it.

Yeah, I can be that way.

I can be that way.

I can be jealous, I can be resentful, I can be, you fill in the blank.

And it's a common experience for all of us.

He said, when I'm weak and own it and say, God, right now I am, I can't forgive this person for what they said about me.

But I know that you can give me your strength to forgive.

You can make me strong in my spirit to forgive this person for what they've done.

And so that's what he's trying to teach us.

That when we are weak physically, intellectually, emotionally, whatever it is, if we acknowledge our humanness and our need for him, we can be strong in the Lord.

Psalm 41, 71, 16 says, I go in the strength of the Lord God.

I like this one at my age, Psalm 71, 18.

Now also, when I'm old and gray-headed, oh God, do not forsake me until I declare your strength to this generation, your power to everyone who is to come.

Even, you know, at this age, I'm concerned about legacy.

My children and grandchildren and others who know me.

And he's saying, this is the legacy you want to leave behind.

The legacy you want to leave behind is I learned how to be strong in the Lord.

It's not that, oh, I have these degrees.

I'm an educated person.

I have so much money in the bank, and you know, I'm successful in different ways.

It's it's not boasting, which is a bragging.

You know, that doesn't happen in this society, does it?

You don't hear people get up and boast about how great they are and their leadership and their ability and their money and their we don't hear that, do we?

So he said he said that the legacy we want to leave behind is we want to be able to tell our children and those who follow after them, we want to be able to tell them, I have learned how to be strong in the Lord, and you can too.

And I want you to be able to crack this code of strength.

You can be strong in the Lord, and you can teach those who follow after you how to be strong in the Lord.

It's not about our human strength, our human ability.

And what I have found personally as I begin to understand this, when I do things that are stupid, and I'm quite capable any moment, or say things, because I you've had this experience, you're just like, why did I say that?

That was stupid, and I won't give you any examples, I just use your own.

But when I do that, this is what I've learned to do, and this has really helped me a lot.

Because I used to go, well, I probably did that because they said something that triggered me.

They, you know, I probably did that, you know, just because I'm really tired.

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night.

You know what I mean.

You try to use a rationale to cover up and not really acknowledge and own it.

But now it really is the code cracked when I go, there's my humanness again.

There's my weakness.

Lord, you just saw what I did and said, you just saw where where I am.

Lord, I'm sorry, Lord, it just affirms one more time, I need you.

I need your strength.

I need your spirit.

I need you, Lord.

You know what that is?

Humility.

It's the opposite of boasting in our strength.

It's, Lord, I humble myself before you right now.

I did it again.

I said I wasn't going to do that again, but I did it again.

I don't want to do that, but I did it again.

I'm weak.

You know what I'm doing when I do that?

I'm boasting in my weakness.

I'm boasting in my weakness.

I'm humbling myself.

There's a song we used to sing.

Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord.

Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord.

And he will lift you up.

And he will lift you up.

Humility goes a long, long ways with him.

He's not only attracted to it, but he actually responds right away to our humility.

So I want to just tell you a quick story before we close, and Pastor Dee Dee's going to come and lead us into ministry.

I was a worship leader in a church in Paris, Texas.

I don't even remember what year it was.

It's so long ago.

I'm at that age, you know.

How do you remember all that stuff?

But it was probably in the 80s.

And um the church was in conflict with each other.

They were fighting.

And you haven't really got your card-carrying Christian card until you've been in a church that's been fighting with each other.

Yeah.

We all have probably been there, right?

I was raised in one of those churches.

Those business meetings were brutal.

And so they were one pastor, I was the worship leader, so one pastor and another pastor, they were fighting, and people were lining up behind each as they chose.

We're not we don't know anything about that either, do we?

You know, well, I'm for him, I'm for him.

And so they were meeting together, and they were scheming together, and they were talking to each other, and yeah.

Wow.

And so I'm in the midst of that, and our custom before each service, this was a Sunday night, and I was leading worship, and I had a full team, you know.

It was amazing.

We had, I don't want to sound like I'm boasting here, so help me, Lord.

But you know, we had the full team, and and it was amazing.

I mean, it was amazing.

What we experienced when we were in unity and in the spirit, it was amazing, and so we would pray in my office before we'd go out on stage, but I am struggling mightily with what's going on in the church, and you know, I've gotten up in front of the church before in the previous meetings, and it is really uncomfortable.

You know, this God comes in a spirit of unity, and by the way, I am just almost brought to tears to see the spirit of unity in this house.

What Kevin shared today was amazing.

What each one has shared has been amazing.

What the worship team has done.

You know, I'm sitting there just marveling at how each one is contributing a different part to bring us into unity.

We the Lord is in this house.

There is a spirit of unity here, there's a spirit of love here, there's a spirit of humility here.

And we didn't have that.

And so we prayed in my office, and I couldn't go out there.

It's like Can't I can't do it.

And so I sent the team out the door and I told them to take the stage and start playing some music.

And I was standing as I closed the door and I said, I can't do this.

Lord, I cannot go out there and lead a worship service in this environment of conflict.

I can't do it.

And I didn't know what I was gonna do.

Am I gonna run away?

I thought about that.

Am I gonna just sit in my office, tell them to go ahead?

I don't know.

I didn't know what I was gonna do.

All I knew is I can't go out there and do this.

Did you ever feel that way about anything in your life?

How am I gonna do this?

I can't do it.

And so I was led to go to a chair in my office, and I got down on my knees, as you can tell.

This experience is vivid for me.

I'm still living it.

I'm I've so I'm I'm down on my knees in front of this chair, and I said, Lord, I cannot do this.

I can't go out there with those people the way they are and what's going on in this church.

I cannot lead worship.

I don't know what to do.

I can't do this.

I got quiet and I heard the Spirit of the Lord say to me.

He told me, say, he's telling me, I want you to say this.

Say, I am strong in the Lord.

Okay.

I'm strong in the Lord.

I'm strong in the Lord.

I'm strong in the Lord.

I'm strong in the Lord.

I kept saying it over and over until I felt his strength in me.

And I was able to go out there in the strength of the Lord and lead us into a place of trying to bring us together and worship into his presence so he could change hearts.

See, it's the Spirit of the Lord that changes hearts.

He gave me the strength to do that.

Now, I know you probably haven't had that exact experience in terms of leading worship, but I'm sure you've had experiences or times when you go, I can't do it.

I can't do this job.

I can't do this relationship.

I can't do whatever it is.

I just can't do it.

Health challenge.

You know, where so the question I have today is, just before I turn it over to Pastor Deedee, here's the question.

Where are you weak?

Where are you weak?

Is it in your thought life?

Is it anger?

Unforgiveness?

Maybe some of the things you do, actions?

Is it not being able to overcome failure from the past?

Is it temptations?

Maybe a temptation just keeps coming back, coming back.

Is it your health?

What is it?

Where is it that you need him?

Where is your weakness this morning?

You see, anything that feels or looks like weakness in your life is an opportunity for you to admit it to the Lord and ask for his strength.

This scripture has meant a lot to me in my past in Ephesians 5.18.

It says, Do not get drunk with wine, for that is wickedness.

And the amplified Bible says corruption or stupidity.

But be filled with the Holy Spirit and constantly guided by Him.

Romans 8.14 says, For those who are led by the Spirit, these are children of God.

You know what he's saying is, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit and led by the Holy Spirit.

All the time.

And it's amazing, it's amazing when you acknowledge your weakness in something and you go about your day and you have this sense of the Spirit just led me into a divine appointment here.

It's amazing to live that way.

It can be, oh, I've got to, I've got to clean the air conditioner, I've got to wash out the garage floor, I've got to change the furnace filter, I've got to do this, you know, I'm a list person.

And trying to do that in your own strength is is really tough.

Now I'm not against that.

I think that's a good idea to plan.

But but to go into that list of things I'm gonna do for the day and acknowledge your need for him.

And then to experience, oh wow, that was a divine appointment.

Oh, the spirit just led me into this conversation.

You understand what I'm saying?

The Spirit of God will get involved in everything you do and lead you throughout your day.

And so I've been trying to practice that and learn that more all the time.

How can I do that?

And it simply comes to this is where I'm weak, Lord.

So will you make me strong?

And then ask him to fill me with the Holy Spirit.

And that's what we're gonna do today.

Is we're gonna see, this is something you practice, this is something you do over and over and over to acknowledge him in all your ways that he will direct your paths.

It's not just something you do at church, it's not just something we're gonna do here, and then you know, oh, that was a nice church service.

That's not what this is about.

This is this is about learning how to live and boast in our weaknesses so then we can be filled with his strength.

Pastor D.

Thank you, Pastor.