When I Am Weak

Another Easter Sunday AM. What do we say today that we have not said before?

If a person called me weak in any area of my life, I would take it as a challenge to strengthen myself. I don’t want to be weak. Neither do you. Weakness when it is not necessary is a sign of neglect. I was running last week with Brian Sherwood and reflecting on the days of childhood. I never had to say back then that I was going for a run – every day was a run – most all day long. Now that we are adults, we don’t run the same way anymore. We have to schedule our runs now in order to get exercise.

Many people seem to experience a connection with Christ’s death on Calvary’s Cross. We understand that he paid the price for our sins and yet we forget that He also paved the way for you and I to experience and to live a life of victory in relationship to Him.

Sometimes it is our weakness that motivates us more than the illusion of our sufficiency. And the weaker we get the stronger we get. Let me paint a composite illustration taken from my ministry experience over the years to try to illustrate.

The wife is tired of protecting her husband’s reputation, keeping the secret of closet alcoholism and drug dependency that has them on the brink of disaster and ruin. She works harder than he does for less money

She’s tired of his controlling nature. The way that he checks the odometer of her car each day to determine whether it reads too much traveling, too much talking to people.

And the endless questioning where were you; who were you talking to?

Everyone thinks he’s such a good guy, but they don’t really know the truth. They’ve never seen the times he’s shaken her and thrown her to the floor.

And what’s really strange is that she’s lived with it long enough that she wonders if it’s her fault. That’s where it always seems to come back to. Something she did, something she didn’t do.

She’s threatened to leave before. Actually she has done it. Not long enough to have to answer too many questions – just long enough to hope that she can shake him this time to help him see the true state of affairs.

Apologies, tears, repentance and then it starts all over again. But he’s angrier. The violence is a little worse.

She has Christian friends who tell her to pray about what she calls a “troubled” relationship. They’ll pray too. Oh boy! That’ll make things better!

But what would they say with the partial picture that she has sketched for them? They just don’t really understand.

They do have geography but that’s about it. They live under the same roof – as far as she knows, he is faithful to her. She is to him. So if they can keep that together then God will be OK with their marriage, maybe. It seems that there must be more to God’s plan for a man and a woman that sharing the same address. The vows. “To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health to love and to cherish, til death do us part, according to God’s holy law” What happened to that?

And the church seems happy as long as they can send their mail to the same place.

If they only knew. But would they really believe it. He seems so different on Sundays. If she could only live with the man she sees on Sundays, that was one of the things that first attracted her to him. She married him, but he never came home.

You know there are people like this in most every church in the country and outside the church as well. Hypocrisy is not a commodity that the church has any particular monopoly on. It’s a human thing. And hypocrisy is not the failure to live as we would like to live. It is the pretense that we are when we know we are not.

And sooner or later people who are oppressed become “powerful”. When they have no fear left of what might come because the pain of what is, is so great. So they don’t care what happens anymore. They don’t care who thinks what. They are just tired of things as they are. And change comes. Lazarus finds himself in Abraham’s bosom and the rich man who ignored him daily cries out for help.

That’s really my prayer for our service today. That God would bring a holy dissatisfaction to your heart in the areas where you have settled for some shadow of what God has for you.

In some ways this scenario reflects the messages of hope that Easter brings us. In our weakness there is opportunity for God’s power to be revealed.

The Message of Forgiveness

I am so thankful that God has forgiven us our sin. He laid his life down as a sacrifice for us. Paid it all, every single sin covered, what you have done, what you have yet to do. Once for all, for all time. We struggle to accept this. But he was there. . . . once . . . on that terrible cross and we’ll never see him there again. And while he was there he did it. He died for the sins of the world past, present and future. We have no idea of the scope of Calvary. On that cross he linked heaven and earth and wrapped his arms around this planet and His blood covered it all. The tragedy is that it is so available and yet many will not come to the cross. They have greater plans that need to be kept back. God might take something away if they actually went to the cross. He might want their home, a little bit of their money, some time given in the interests of others, their availability.

Martyred missionary, Jim Elliott summed it all up:

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

The Devil comes to us like a fur trader to the native people, offering us bobbles a plenty for the riches that we already hold in our hands and we eagerly give them away, thinking that we have struck the upper hand in the deal. Birthrights for a mess of pottage like Esau.

And in thinking that we are running our own lives we actually are bowing to worship the earth god, “the god of this world”, the Bible calls him. And thinking that God wants to take something away from us we miss his offer of forgiveness.

So we understand as much as humanly possible the concept of forgiveness that Easter reminds us of, but what about the resurrection. After Jesus bled out for the human race. What then?

The Power of the Resurrection

A group of four year olds were gathered in a Sunday school class in Chattanooga. The teacher looked at the class and asked this question: "Does anyone know what today is?" A little four-year-old girl held up her hand and said," Yes, today is Palm Sunday." The teacher exclaimed, "That's fantastic, that's wonderful. Now does anyone know what next Sunday is?" The same little girl held up her hand and said, "Yes, next Sunday is Easter Sunday." Once again the teacher said, "That's fantastic. Now, does anyone know what makes next Sunday Easter?" The same little girl responded and said, "Yes, next Sunday is Easter because Jesus rose from the grave" and before the teacher could congratulate her, she kept on talking and said, "but if he sees his shadow -- he has to go back in for seven weeks."

What grabs my heart today is that we seem to live with the knowledge that Jesus rose from the grave but our lives seem to lack that kind of power. We seem to miss the real meaning.

Too many times we miss so much because we live on the low level of the natural, the ordinary, the explainable. We leave no room for God to do the exceeding abundant thing above all that we can ask or think.

n Vance Havner in the Vance Havner Quote Book. Christianity Today, Vol. 36, no. 14.

This could be a spiritual “Tim Allen” thing perhaps. Remember Tim the “Tool Man” with his man-grunts? Always looking for a way to make something more powerful. We watched him beef up dishwashers and lawn mowers to his wife’s dismay. For Tim, the quest for more power seemed always to lead to disaster.

I have a surround sound system hooked up at home. It’s a Sony that I purchased a few years ago now. I would have to say that I am disappointed because I want to be able to turn it up a quarter of the way and find all the volume that I want. I found it overpriced and underpowered.

The scripture says in the context of sexual propriety that we are the purchase of God.

"Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." (1 Corinthians 6:18-20, NIV) [1]

I just wonder if God has found us overpriced and underpowered.

I confess though that at this stage of my life that I long for a greater sense of God’s power on my life.

I love this story of Charles Finney the great revivalist:

“While making my home in Utica, I preached frequently in New Hartford, a village four miles south of Utica. There was a precious and powerful work of grace, a Mr. Coe being at the time pastor of the Presbyterian church. I preached also at Whitesboro, another beautiful village, four miles west of Utica; where also was a powerful revival. The pastor, Mr. John Frost, was a most efficient laborer in the work.

A circumstance occurred in this neighborhood, which I must not fail to notice. There was a cotton manufactory on the Oriskany creek, a little above Whitesboro, a place now called New York Mills. It was owned by a Mr. W, an unconverted man, but a gentleman of high standing and good morals. My brother-in-law, Mr. G A, was at that time superintendent of the factory. I was invited to go and preach at that place, and went up one evening, and preached in the village schoolhouse, which was large, and was crowded with hearers. The Word, I could see, took powerful effect among the people, especially among the young people who were at work in the factory.

The next morning, after breakfast, I went into the factory, to look through it. As I went through, I observed there was a good deal of agitation among those who were busy at their looms, and their mules, and other implements of work. On passing through one of the apartments, where a great number of young women were attending to their weaving, I observed a couple of them eyeing me, and speaking very earnestly to each other; and I could see that they were a good deal agitated, although they both laughed. I went slowly toward them. They saw me coming, and were evidently much excited. One of them was trying to mend a broken thread, and I observed that her hands trembled so that she could not mend it. I approached slowly, looking on each side at the machinery, as I passed; but observed that this girl grew more and more agitated, and could not proceed with her work. When I came within eight or ten feet of her, I looked solemnly at her. She observed it, and was quite overcome, and sunk down, and burst into tears. The impression caught almost like powder, and in a few moments nearly all in the room were in tears. This feeling spread through the factory. Mr. W, the owner of the establishment, was present, and seeing the state of things, he said to the superintendent, "Stop the mill, and let the people attend to religion; for it is more important that our souls should be saved than that this factory run." The gate was immediately shut down, and the factory stopped; but where should we assemble? The superintendent suggested that the mule room was large; and, the mules being run up, we could assemble there. We did so, and a more powerful meeting I scarcely ever attended. It went on with great power. The building was large, and had many people in it, from the garret to the cellar. The revival went through the mill with astonishing power, and in the course of a few days nearly all in the mill were hopefully converted.

-- From Charles Finney's Autobiography

I have no desire to turn back the clock because we will never find God there, if we long for His power today. But I want to see His power at work among us. Nothing else will satisfy this desire for me. I am infinitely thankful for what I am experiencing of God in this place. If I come to my retirement years and God tells me that what we now know of Him is all that there is to know then I will be satisfied. But until I know, I’m looking for something more than what I have experienced. The more that I know of God the more that I know there is to know. I shall never be satisfied while trying to see through the dark glass of this world.

"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1 Corinthians 13:12, NIV)[2]

There are too many who define God by their past experience. They say that current experience fully and exhaustibly describes Him.

Let me tell you friend, he is so much more than what you have known thus far.

My God is so Big, so strong and mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do

The mountains are His the valleys are His, the Stars are His handiwork too.

My God is so Big, so strong and mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do

But we don’t live quite like that.

" But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them." (2 Timothy 3:1-5, NIV) [3]

Too many of God’s children live with the forgiveness of the cross but powerless in their impact on this world. Can you hear Paul’s longing for more of God in these familiar verses from the book of Philippians?

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:10-14, NIV) [4]

Gordon MacDonald lists seven deadly siphons that rob pastors of spiritual power and vitality.

Seven deadly siphons..

n Words without action

n Busyness without purpose

n Calendars without a Sabbath

n Relationships without mutual nourishment

n Pastoral personality without self-examination

n Natural giftedness without spiritual power

n An enormous theology without an adequate spirituality

I’d like to challenge you on Resurrection Day to live in the

power of the Resurrection. How do you do that?

1. Take out the bully. The Devil brow-beats us over our inability to live perfectly. Every time that we fall he is there to discourage, to heap doubt upon you.

In his book, Fuzzy Memories, Jack Handey writes, "There used to be this bully who would demand my lunch money every day. Since I was smaller, I would give it to him.

"Then I decided to fight back. I started taking karate lessons, but the instructor wanted $5 a lesson. It was cheaper to pay the bully, so I gave up karate."

Too many Christians believe it's easier to pay the bully than learn how to defeat him.

2. Accept what God has to say about you. Take His Word for it – not your or someone else’s. What does He have to say?

3. Pray! A Christian who has no active prayer life is a powerless Christian.

We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity but we accomplish little; many services but few conversions; much machinery but few results.

-- R. A. Torrey

Why do we tend to speak disparagingly of the power of prayer. It seems that there is always someone who sees that prayer and action are mutually exclusive. I don’t see it that way.

4. Don’t give up! I’m pressing on the upward way. New heights I’m gaining every day. Still praying as I onward bound. Lord plant my feet on higher ground. Lord lift me up and let me stand by faith on heaven’s table land. A higher place than I have found. Lord plant my feet on higher ground. What a great prayer! I think that as long as a person sings this they should mean it – otherwise they should just listen to it.

The Power of Persistence – what water can do over a period of time – don’t dismiss the power of steady effort. The Berlin wall appeared to come down overnight but it didn’t.

5. Practice His Presence. A Christian who does not learn that God is present with them is a powerless Christian. Brother Lawrence book, “The Practice of the Presence of God”, encourages Christians to understand that they do not enter and exit the presence of God. He has an active plan for you in every experience of every day and challenges us to live out of that plan. The Presence of God was key to guidance for the nation of Israel as they wandered in the desert, as they embarked on the conquest of the Promised Land. When they knew that God was with them they went forward fearlessly. And success bred success. But when they forget and stepped out ahead of Him they met with disaster. I believe that the same principle is a valid one for our lives today.

If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.

n Betty Reese. Leadership, Vol. 16, no. 2.

Too Much Blood?

By John Fischer

I just heard that a recut version of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” is being released in time for Easter. This version has seven minutes of graphic scenes removed to help make it more palatable to a wider audience. In referring to the film’s projected longevity, an executive with the film company was quoted as saying, “this movie has nine lives.”

I had to smile at the statement. A movie about the greatest story ever told that would not even exist today had Christ not permanently risen from the dead making eternal life possible for multitudes upon multitudes of people who will enjoy eternity with God in heaven has nine lives? Is that all? The movie may die; the story plays on.

There were complaints about the amount of blood in the original film. For that reason I was braced for it when I went to see the movie a year ago. To my surprise, it was the abundance blood that had the greatest impact on me. I watched the Roman soldiers getting splattered with it, and realized it was the blood of their salvation and they didn’t even know it. I watched Mary helplessly trying to wipe it all up, and realized it was the salvation of the whole world and did she know it?

But the big realization was when I connected the blood of Jesus Christ with what was necessary to cover my sin. That’s when there was no longer an issue of too much blood. The new question was: Would there be enough? I suddenly realized I’d been singing R-rated hymns all my life, and I finally understood them.

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins,

And sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.

That’s a lot of blood. I understand this sentiment. If this blood washes me clean, then I am going to need enough to dive into because I am dirty all over.

The new version was cut to try and lose its R-rated status. In the end, the Motion Picture Association of America refused to rate the recut because there was still too much violence for younger viewers. Fine with me. I always thought the crucifixion of Christ should be R-rated anyway.

What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh precious is the flow

That makes me white as snow.

No other fount I know—

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Too much blood? Never. Just as long as there’s enough for everybody.

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[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[2] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[3] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[4] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.