I am so tired of hearing Christians telling me: Brother Paul, “I’m just so weak.” You say; “brother Paul, you started off your sermon saying you were weak.” So why can’t we say it? Well I want you to understand the phrase, and the context of it.
First of all, you’re not weak, and I can prove it to you. In the last week, how much time did you spend grasping, and striving to know God and His word, and in prayer; knowing that apart from God and His work on your behalf you aren’t going to be able to make it? See it’s real easy to say: “I’m so weak.” Your problem is not that you’re so weak, you’re problem is; you think you’re strong. I can prove it by just looking at your devotional life. You see? Our problem is not that we are too weak. Our problem is that we do not recognize our weakness. Do you see that?
That’s why the greatest men and women that have been most used of God though out Christian history seem to have only one thing in common, a recognition of their weakness.
Now, here’s what I want to show you, and it’s so, so important. Weakness is not a hindrance to power; weakness is the catalyst, to spiritual power. The problem is wrong response. So first of all you need to recognize something. Everybody is weak. Everything that is demanded of you in the New Testament is absolutely impossible for the natural man. There you go; so now everybody is on the same level. Me, You, Spurgeon, John Piper, all of us; everyone’s weak, that’s it. Now you can’t use weakness as an excuse anymore, because everybody is just as weak. No one can do this stuff. No one. So there you go, we’re weak. The question is what do we do?
Now, many people just mouth “weakness”, because it’s the Christian thing to say. “I’m weak”. Other people find it very convenient to use that phraseology, why? Because they can use it as an excuse for they’re sin. “Well I’m weak, everybody’s weak.” But the right mind set here, is in recognizing your weakness. It drives you to God, immediately to God. Believing in faith, that He is the fountain He claims to be. That He is the source and the helper he claims to be. That He is one of unlimited resources. That He does not greedily hand out to children, but He lavishes upon us. So see, your problem is that you’re really not recognizing you’re weak. Or, you recognize you’re weak, but you just stay there in your weakness. The thing is your weakness ought to drive you to God, every time. But here’s the problem. Let’s enter in with your heart condemning you, and Satan helping your heart condemn you.
I saw someone last night. I dealt along time with them, a precious little girl. She recognized her weakness, she recognized her frailty; she recognized her sin. She recognized that there were some things in her life she couldn’t overcome right now. But here was her problem, she would see her sin, and because of the work of the Devil, and sometimes our own heart condemning us. She would put herself in the penalty box, every time that she sinned. “Well you can’t go to God right now. You can’t just keep running back to Him. You sinned yesterday; you repented, and asked for forgiveness, now you’ve done the same exact thing today. I mean you run back to Him you’re just a hypocrite. You don’t appreciate God. You don’t have a high view of God. What do you think, that God just hands out pardons to everyone?”
Isn’t that what we do, and isn’t that what we think? We sin a sin, that we have already sinned, and already repented of, and because of it we think we ought to put ourselves in a penalty box; for a little while at least. A couple of days, and try to work our way back into favor before we come to God. Because we think actually: “If I go back every time I do this, immediately. Not only going back, and asking for forgiveness, but expecting forgiveness. Isn’t that hypocrisy? Isn’t that a low view of God? Isn’t that treating God as a forgiveness machine?”
No, it’s being biblical!
It’s what poverty of spirit is supposed to do to us. Now again, I’m not preaching this hopefully to unconverted church people. Who are going to say; “wow if God’s that good, I’ll sin all the time, and just go back and ask for forgiveness.” Hopefully I’m not talking to people like that. Hopefully I’m talking to genuine Christians. Who really want to be something they are not yet. But when they find themselves frail, when they find themselves weak, when they find themselves sinning the same sin. They kind of huddle of here and wait. Maybe read their bible for a few days, pray some more, show God they’re really sincere, before they over there, and actually try to get some forgiveness. No!
One of the great joys in my life is when I discovered. The moment I sinned the sin I always sin. My first response ought to be to latch ahold of Christ. Not beggarly, not thinking. “Here I am, you ought to strike me down,” but No! I latch ahold of Christ saying, “I believe your promises! I am in a different realm, I am free, I am a saint; I been moved out of Adam and condemnation and law.
All of it was paid for on that tree when He died.
He knew all of it!
He forgave all of it!
I’M FREE!”
It’s absolutely spectacular.
