Word of Salvation – Vol.26b No.07 – November 1980

 

The Strength Of Weakness

 

Sermon by Rev. John Rietveld on Ephesians 6:10

 Scripture Readings: 2Cor.11:16-33; 2Cor.12:1-10

Psalter Hymnal: 120; 48:1,2,4; 446:1-4; 473:1,2

 

Brothers and Sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ,

The question “why?” can be a terribly annoying one.  I suppose most of you who are parents will have gone through that stage with your children.  They want to know the ‘why’ of everything.  You answer the first why, and then immediately they hit you with the next one.  Eventually, we learn to deal with it, and the kids get over it anyhow.  But have you ever stopped to analyse what happens when people ask you why?  I guess the reason it starts to become annoying after a while is because it forces you to think – you have to start coming up with reasons and answers.

Sometimes on my pastoral visits that can be a very interesting question.  Why?  Why do you say that?  Why do you do that?  Why do you ask that question?  Sometimes people get a little bit threatened and feel uncomfortable if you ask them, because either they haven’t thought about it, or they don’t want to think about it.  If people feel very uncomfortable about why they do something, then they will try to put it out of their minds or simply ignore it, hoping it will go away.

But when we are dealing with the Bible, when we are trying to understand what God is saying to us, we should feel very free to ask that question,’ why?’  Why now does Paul start this final part of his letter to the churches at Ephesus with these words?  “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might”.  Obviously, he wants to encourage them, he knows it’s not easy to live as followers of Christ.  But why in particular does he use these words?

The answer to that question is not really very difficult when we see the one thing that characterises the lives of God’s people as we read the Bible.  That one thing is weakness.  And whether we start in the Old Testament or in the New, we find it coming up time and again.  People, even those who belong to God, are not strong; they are weak, they are unable to serve God the way He wants to be served.

We find this clearly revealed especially in those people to whom God has revealed Himself in wonderful ways.  If you like, we could even start with the one and only human being apart from Jesus Christ, who for a time lived in a state of sinless perfection.  Adam lived in perfect communion with God.  When the devil came to seduce him away from serving the Lord, this one word should have been before him more than anything else.  Be strong in the Lord, Adam, and in the strength of His might.  But Adam tried to be strong in himself, in Adam, and we know how easily he was deceived and how weak he really was.  The next great saint in the Old Testament was Noah, and we read that Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.  Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God, we read.  And surely you would think that a man about whom these things were written would be a strong man.  God had shown him in the most dramatic way that He was a holy and faithful witness to God.  Yet almost the very first thing that Noah did after the flood was to plant a vineyard and get drunk.  Righteous Noah, blameless Noah who walked with God became drunk-weak!

And what of Abraham, who was called the friend of God.  What a wonderful title that was: the friend of God!  And in how many ways had not God made Himself known to Abraham.  He called him out of Ur of the Chaldees; He made an eternal covenant with him; He gave him his son Isaac back from the altar; He showed him his wrath and His holiness before He punished Sodom and Gomorrah.  Surely a man like Abraham would be a strong man.  But He struggled with God’s promise of a son, and he slept with Hagar instead.  He didn’t really trust God’s care over him, so when he lived in the country of King Abimelech, he called Sarah his sister.  Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might, but when Abraham trusted himself he was weak.  And we could speak of Lot, the man who had seen first-hand the power of the God he served – Lot the righteous man.  Lot saw all his neighbours turned blind by the angels.  Lot knew the city he lived in was totally destroyed by God.  Lot saw his own wife turned into a pillar of salt.  Surely that would encourage any man to find his strength in the Lord.  But Lot too was made drunk by his daughters and had incestuous relationships with them.

And David, the man after God’s own heart.  If ever there was a man who knew what it was to be strong in the Lord, it was David.  He killed Goliath and he killed the Philistines and he loved his Lord.  Yet when he figured that the strength he had was his own by right, he became a murderer, an adulterer, a man of blood, a weak man.

Time would not permit us to deal with all those people to whom God had made Himself known in a specially close way.  You can read about all those heroes of faith of the Old Testament in Hebrews 11.  And you will find, almost without exception, that when they trusted in themselves, they fell away from God – they were weak.  And that is true not only of the Old Testament, but it is also true in the New Testament.  I would draw your attention especially to the apostle Peter, that impetuous man who so believed Christ that he too walked on water.  And yet he too fell away and denied his Lord, he too had to be rebuked by Paul for listening to other people.

But what about you and me today?  Is it really any different for us?  Do you not know of people in the church who have known and experienced the power of God in their own lives in a strong and powerful way, and have fallen?  They trusted in what they could do for God and not in what God would do through them.  Perhaps that is even true in your own life.  Your spiritual life has become largely mechanical – you go through the motions – but the power, the dynamic seems to have gone!

This text before us is written for us – it is written so that we might be strong, so that we might be strengthened.  But before we apply it to our own situation, we have to recognise our own weakness.  There is not one person here today, young or old, who can be encouraged by this Word of God for their own lives – until they recognise and confess their own weakness.  You cannot be strong in the Lord until you are weak in yourself.

All of us have found and will continue to find that the Christian warfare is not so easy.  There is an enormous amount of struggle and trial involved.  Jesus Himself said, “Do not think I came to bring peace on earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household” (Matt.10:34-36).

There will always be great struggles involved in being a soldier for Christ.  There will be tensions in the family, at work, at school, and when you are called to stand up for Jesus, each one of us needs to realize that in ourselves we cannot succeed and we will not succeed.  Let us recognise our weakness let us recognise our inability.

Apart from the Spirit of Christ all our best efforts will fail.  I hear so often from people when they have particular problems, that their stories have one thing in common.  I this and I that and I tried such and I did so.  I spoke in such a way and I said this…!

And therein is exactly the problem.  People are depending upon their own strength, their own ability, and their own wisdom.  If the name and the power of Christ is added at all, it is added as an afterthought – an ‘also ran’ addition – a late addition

We tend to presume upon the power of God and the leading of His Spirit.  We tend to think that because we belong to Christ then automatically and in every situation He will be there and He will lead.  But we do not even live our own lives in this way.  If I want my wife to help me with a particular situation, I do not simply expect her to help, I have to ask.  And when I don’t ask and a problem arises, I can’t blame her.

Well how much more should we acknowledge, constantly and daily, our own weakness and lack of strength to our heavenly Father?  That is the life of faith, …is it not, total dependence upon Christ?  That is what we confess – is it not? – that we belong totally to Christ – body and soul, in life and death?  And therein is the secret of a joyful Christian life and power!  Therein is the unfailing blessing of Christ in all our endeavours, when we depend upon His strength.  Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.  It means a constant acknowledgement of our total dependence upon His strength.  It is not a dependence on our past spiritual successes.  It means an ongoing awareness that God works in and through His people.  It is not their working with His help as it suits them.

But once we have recognised our weakness, then indeed wonderful things begin to happen in the life of God’s army.  This is demonstrated so clearly in the life of the apostle Paul.  He, too, like so many of the Old Testament saints, had a wonderful revelation of God.  In fact he speaks about it as being caught up in the third heaven, caught up into Paradise, where he heard inexpressible words.  And to keep him from exalting himself because he had had this experience he was afflicted with a thorn in the flesh – a messenger from Satan.  Now we don’t know exactly what this particular problem was, and it isn’t really important either.  But certainly it bothered him.

He entreated the Lord, he begged the Lord, three times, that this thorn in the flesh might depart from him.  But God’s answer was not what Paul hoped or expected to hear.  God’s answer was this – My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.  Paul makes this most amazing confession, that should be a part of the witness of every Christian.  Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Is that a part of your strength, my friends – boasting in your weaknesses?  Not in a false humility, or a modesty that is really pride.  Not saying, “Well, you know, I really am not much good, but I still can do this, that and the other….!”  It is not that, but a genuine and sincere recognition that you in yourself are really weak.  Because only that kind of boasting brings glory to God and honour to Christ and praise to the Spirit.  Only that kind of boasting puts its finger right on the true and only source of power.  When I am weak – then I am strong, says Paul.

Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.  Does your Christian life lack vitality and power?  Does your family, your work, your schooling, not see very much of the power and strength of God in your life?  May I suggest that one of the possible reasons is because you have never recognised your own weakness.  You refuse to acknowledge that you in yourself are a weak person.

You are still hungering and thirsting for the recognition of the world, for the pats on the back from men.  The Mr. Nice Guy – tough guy – rich guy – clever guy… is the image you wish to portray.

Well, go to Gethsemane, and you will see some of the greatest power on earth.  It was there that Jesus went and agonised and prayed: “Not my will, but Thine”.  Go and have a look at Calvary, and there you will see what seems to be almost unbelievable weakness.

Come on down from that cross Jesus Christ.  You saved others, but you can’t even save yourself.  Was that not weakness?  No – it was the power of God at work, conquering the work of the evil one.  It was the power of God being shown to the world for the salvation of men.  And that same power of God is still at work in the church today.  That is why Paul holds this encouragement before us.

Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might!

The church is the army of God fighting the works of evil in this world.  You and I are soldiers of Christ, called to stand up for His truth.  Would you stand up for Christ, or side with the enemy?  Would you confess Christ as your Lord and Saviour?  That takes a lot of strength.  And you will only be as strong as you are weak!  How weak are you?

Amen.