USING MY WEAKNESSES - part 2

We want to finish the message on Using Your Weaknesses.

The fact is everybody has weaknesses – emotional, physical, intellectual, relational, financial. We all have weaknesses. What we usually do with our weaknesses is we deny them or we hide them or we pretend they don’t exist or we ignore them or we excuse them or we blame other people for them. God comes along and says, “I’ve got something totally different. I want to use your weaknesses.” We say, “No, God! You don’t want to use them. You want to take away my weaknesses !” God says, “My ways are not your ways. My ways are higher than your ways I’m smarter than you. I have a plan. I want to use your weaknesses.” You say, “But God, don’t You want to use my strengths? You gave me all these abilities and talents. Why don’t You use my strengths?” He says, “I will use your strengths, yes. But I also want to use your weaknesses.”

Remember what we defined weakness as. We’re not talking about something you can change. We’re not talking about a sin, a character defect, a fault – overeating, chocolate, being late. No, that’s stuff you can do something about. When we talked about God wanting to use your weaknesses, we’re talking about any limitation in your life that you either inherited or you cannot change. There’s some things in your life you go, “Why God? Why did I have this relationship? I didn’t choose my parents. I didn’t choose my body. I didn’t choose my natural makeup. I didn’t choose the fact that I may have a predisposition toward depression, or worry, or losing my temper. I didn’t choose a lot of things in my life, yet they do limit my life, they often cause pain in my life. I can’t change some of those things.” If you naturally have a bad back, you’re going to have a bad back all your life. God says, “I have a plan even for your weaknesses. Not just your strengths but even your weaknesses.”

1 Corinthians 1:27 “God purposely chose what the world considers nonsense in order to put wise men to shame and what the world considers weak in order to put powerful men to shame.”
Underline “purposely chose” and circle “weak”. God purposely chose the weaknesses in your life, not the sins, not the character faults, but those limitations in your life that you cannot change and you just inherited them. You’ve got them
and God says He wants to use them.

There are three steps God has to take us through in order to use our weakness.

1. First, I must admit my weakness. That’s pretty easy for most people. I don’t know anybody who maintains that they’re perfect. We all have shortcomings and faults and areas we’re weak in. So the first thing, we just say, “You’re right. I don’t have it all together. I’d like to pretend that I do. I’d like to think that I do. But I don’t.” So I stop pretending. I stop hoping that my weaknesses will just go away if I ignore them. I stop making excuses. I stop blaming other people for my weaknesses. I stop defending them. I stop denying them. I just admit: I have some weaknesses in my life – physical, spiritual … all these areas. That’s a pretty easy step. The second step is a little more difficult.

2. I must be grateful for my weaknesses. Why would anybody be grateful for their weaknesses? We talked about four reasons. Paul says “I’ve cheerfully made up my mind to be proud of my weaknesses because they mean a deeper experience of the power of Christ in my life. When I have weaknesses it …

1) guarantees God’s power, because I’m depending on Him.

2) prevents arrogance, because I know I can’t do it all on my own.

3) it causes me to value others. Nobody gets all the pieces of the puzzle in their box. You don’t have all the gifts. God wants us to value each other, so nobody gets it all. You’re lacking some things and I’m lacking some things so we need each other. I need you, you need me – we need each other. We’re supposed to have helpers and friends who compensate for our weaknesses.

4) It gives me a ministry. Your greatest ministry, the way you can make the biggest impact on earth is that God will take your greatest weakness and turn it into a ministry. And God will take your deepest hurt and turn it into your life message. The Bible says He takes us through problems and comforts us so we can turn around and help people with the same comfort we’ve been given. Who could better help somebody going through a divorce than somebody who went through the pain of a divorce? Who can better help somebody struggling with an addiction than somebody who was an addict and Jesus helped them through it? Who could better help a couple with the pain of not having children when they wanted them than a couple who wanted children but were unable to have them for one reason or another? The very thing you’re most ashamed of, that you’re most embarrassed about., the very thing you wished nobody knows about, that skeleton in your closet, the very thing that still hurts you and pains you, if you’ll let God work on it in your life and touch you and heal you, God will use to help other people. That’s called a ministry.

But none of this can take place unless you’re willing to take step three. That’s what we’re going to talk about. I have to recognize my weaknesses, be grateful for them and think how God can use them. But if you want God to use the weakness in your life.

3. YOU MUST BE WILLING TO SHARE.
I must openly share my weaknesses. I let down my guard. I take off the mask. I put aside my defenses and just admit it. It’s like that “great” theologian, Flip Wilson, used to say, “What you see is what you get”. You be open and honest with people. This is called being vulnerable.

Would you agree that if you’re open and honest about your weaknesses with everybody around you, then that is a risky thing to do? It is. Highly risky. You don’t know how they’re going to respond to it. “I’m afraid to let you know what I’m really like because if you don’t like it, I’m up a creek because I’m all I’ve got. So what I’ll do is wear a mask and pretend to be what I think you want me to be. Then I think you’ll like me. Because if I really let you know what I’m really like, with all my faults and hurts and weaknesses and you reject that, I’m dead in the water. Tough luck!” So we live with masks most of our lives. It’s scary, risky, to be honest – gut level honest about your weaknesses with people.

God says do it. Four reasons. James Cook had to learn this lesson the hard way. He was the captain who discovered Hawaii and the Fiji islands and a number of other South Pacific islands. On one of the islands he discovered, they treated him like a god, put him on a pedestal because they’d never seen anybody like him. When he left on board the ship and pulled out to sea, they ran into a storm. Captain Cook was afraid the boat would capsize. Out of fear, they turned around and came back to shore. When they did, the natives murdered Captain Cook and his crew. He’d fallen off their pedestal and they couldn’t handle it. He wasn’t a god. No god would be afraid of a storm. They realized he was a mere mortal. He had disappointed them so they killed him.

I doubt any of you are going to get killed for being open and honest about your fears, but it is a risky proposition. So why should I learn to live a lifestyle where I’m honest and open, up front, about the emotional, physical, intellectual, spiritual weaknesses in my life? Four reasons:

1. It is emotionally healthy

Maintaining an image of perfection requires an enormous amount of energy. When you try to live a life that shows everybody “I’ve got it all together” when you know you don’t and everybody else does too but you keep up the pretense, that’s why you’re under such stress. When you walk around with a mask on all the time, it creates enormous pressure in your life – tension, anxiety – What if I let the mask drop? One of the reasons you’re so stressed out and you’re near burn out is that you’re trying to be something you’re not. You’re trying to pretend you’ve got it all together when you know you don’t. Everybody else knows it too but you’re trying to keep up the façade that you’ve attained perfection and you’ve got it under control and everything’s hunky-dory. On the other hand, if you drop the mask and let down your guard and be real, honest, there is nothing as liberating emotionally than just being real, being honest, and not trying to put on show. In fact, that’s the only healthy way to live.

James 5:16 “Confess your faults to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” Circle “each other”.
You probably do a pretty good job of confessing your faults to God. But it says to confess them to each other. It says you confess them to each other so you can be healed. Revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing. That’s the starting point. Some of those things that still hurt in your life, if you don’t get rid of, they’re never going to be gotten rid of until you share them with another person.
The very fact of sharing it with somebody else means the door is opening. The boogieman is not the boogieman anymore. They’re on the road to recovery. That’s the first step.

There are some things in your life that just won’t budge. Habits that you just can’t get rid of no matter how many messages you listen to, how many books you read, seminars you go to – there are some things in your life that you don’t like that just won’t change no matter how much you pray, “God, please take this out of my life!” It’s not going to, It’s not going to budge until first you be honest about it with some other human being. God wired us up that way. He wants us to help each other. We’re all stuck on this planet together. (starburst video)

Revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing.

It is emotionally healthy to let it go. As long as you’re not sharing with anybody saying you can handle it on your own, God says, “No, you can’t.”

If you’re looking for a place to do it, a good place is called FOCUS*. This place is a hang out for sinners. We’re all a bunch of guys and girls who have blown it in various areas. In fact, when we put up our sign, it ought to be “No perfect people need apply.” This is only for people who lie, cheat, steal, and have other kinds of faults. This is for human beings. This is not a place where people are perfect. This is a place for people who want to change. This is a place for people who want to grow. If you don’t want to grow, or you want to wear a mask and pretend like you’ve got it all together, you’re in the wrong church! This is the place where people are real and vulnerable. Why? It’s emotionally healthy.

2. It’s spiritually empowering.

The Bible says in the book of James, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Circle “grace” and “humble” Those two words go together.

What is grace? Grace is the fact that God gives you what you need not what you deserve. Aren’t you glad God doesn’t give you what you deserve? If we got what we deserve, none of us would be here right now. He gives us what we need. That’s called grace. Grace is the power to change. You need grace every single week. You’re going to need it this week. You’re going to need grace to handle the problems you’re going to face in the next seven days. You’re going to need grace to handle the people you face in the next seven days – the conflicts. You’re going to need grace to handle the pressures you’re going to face in the next seven days.

How do you get grace? God gives grace to the humble. How do I get grace? By humbling myself. How do I do that? By being honest about my weaknesses. That’s what humility is. Humility is not denying your strengths. Humility is being honest about your weaknesses. You are a whole bundle of strengths and weaknesses. You have some tremendous strengths in your life. There’s no doubt of that. You also have some tremendous weaknesses in your life. I’m sure of that to because it’s the same in my life. I’ve got some great strengths in my life and I have enormous weaknesses.

Many people have a false idea of what humility is. You think humility is putting yourself down all the time, “I’m no good! I’m a bum! Worthless. Nobody loves me, everybody hates me. I’m going to go eat maggots! I’m a piece of junk.” Jesus Christ did not die for junk. The cross shows you value. Jesus said, “Let me show you how much I value you.” This much and he stretched his arms out on the cross. He says we’re worth dying for. Jesus did not die for junk. And the very fact that Christ died for you shows how much you matter to God, how much He values you. Humility is simply being honest about your weaknesses. And the more honest we are, the more grace we get. The more grace we get, the more power we have to change.


3. It is relationally attractive.

People like you more when you do it. A whole lot more. The fastest way to endear yourself to other people is to quit trying to pretend like you’ve got it all together. And just admit your weaknesses. We love people who are honest, open, vulnerable, down to earth, real and admit it when they’ve blown it. We love those kinds of people. We love being around them.

On the other hand we despise people who are deceitful, hyper-critical and pretend like they’ve got it all together when they don’t and are arrogant and they’re jerks. We don’t’ like that. If you want people to be open to you, all you have to do is be open to them. Be honest.

Whenever you go out and share your strengths, that always creates competition. It’s bragging. But whenever I share weakness that creates community. Vulnerability is the key to fellowship. Would you like to be closer to your husband/wife? Would you like to have a more intimate relationship with your kids or best friends? Would like like to have a more solid relationships? The key is to be vulnerable.

What is it in your relationships that you’re pretending not to know? There’s a big problem in your home, your friendship, with that person you’re dating or engaged to. It’s like a big pink elephant sitting in your living room and you’re saying, “I don’t see any pink elephant.” What are you pretending not to know, that you know is wrong in that relationship? You’re not doing anything about it, you’re not talking about it, you’re not being honest.

We are emotionally distant until we break down the barriers and admit our weaknesses.

Have you ever done that? Have you ever shared your greatest fear with your spouse? I’m not talking about “I’m really afraid of spiders.”
Husbands, have you ever shared your deepest fears? “I’m afraid that I will not be able to provide for you, that I might loose my job and can’t find another one.”

If you want to be close to somebody there’s only one way to genuine intimacy. Remember?
Truth... Trust... Transperancy

There is no intimacy without vulnerability. That’s why some people can never have a relationship. They’ll never let anybody get close to them. So they’re lonely. God says, “I want you to learn to be an open, vulnerable person because it’s emotionally healthy, spiritually empowering, and it is relationally attractive.”

4. It’s a mark of leadership

If you want to be a leader, you’ll have to become vulnerable. Every one of us is called to be leader. Every one of you are leaders in different areas, different domains. Sometimes you’re a leader in your community, your neighborhood, you block, your family. You have to take a leadership role sometimes with children, sometimes with aged parents, sometimes at work or at school. There are some times you have to take the lead.

Leadership can be summed up in one word -- influence. Leadership is influence. It’s not position. It’s not title. It’s influence. If I were to take you to the grade school and at recess on the playground, within five minutes you could pick out which kids were the leaders. It’s real simple. They’re the ones who are influencing everybody else.

If you want to be an influential leader, if you want to say, “I don’t just want to waste my life. I want to make an impact. I want to leave the world a better place because I was here,” you’re going to have to be a leader. The way you become a leader is through credibility. Credibility is the one essential requirement for leadership. If you don’t have credibility, people won’t trust you. And if people don’t trust you, you certainly can’t influence them.

How do you get credibility? By being vulnerable, open. When you go to a bank and borrow some money do they immediately hand over the money to you? No. They do what’s called a credit check. They look and see are you credit worthy? Are you credible? Do you pay off your debts on time, with interest, without any late payments or penalties? Are you trustworthy? And if you are credit worthy, then they’ll loan you money.

Every moment of your life, people around you are doing credit checks on you. Your kids, before they do what you say, they’re going to say to themselves, “Does their life back up what they say? Are they worthy of trusting? Are they worthy of following?” Your friends, your neighbors, the people you work with, if you’re a salesman, your customers, “Are you credible?”

How do you be credible? Not by being perfect but by being honest. If you have to be perfect to be a leader, how many leaders are we going to have in the world? None. You don’t have to be perfect to be a leader but you do have to be honest about your weaknesses. When you’re honest about your weaknesses they say, “This person’s not trying to give me a snow job. Not trying to blow me away. He’s not wearing a mask. He’s the real article, the genuine item. I can trust what that person says so I will follow them. I will do what they say.” It’s integrity, humility – credibility – being vulnerable.
When you do that you can influence others.

We have to decide in life whether we’re going to impress people or influence people. You can’t do both. You can impress people from a distance, but you can only influence people up close. From a distance, you look pretty classy. You could be a celebrity from a distance but when you get up close to people they see your warts and liver spots and cellulite and other failings, faults, failures in your life. But you don’t have to be perfect to be a leader, you do have to be real. God says I want you to be that because He wants leaders in this world to impact the world for good, not for evil.

Why are we talking about this? Why have we spent two weeks on this?

Since Cathleen and I began ministry about 12yrs. ago, we’ve been trying to build a model of LAF (Love, Acceptance, Forgiveness) and vulnerability - it has culminated here @ FOCUS. We’ve always wanted this family to be a place where you don’t have to have it all together and people can be honest, open about their struggles. The tragic thing is in alot of churches, that’s the last place you want to share your weaknesses, to be honest. “If I let them know what’s going on in my marriage, with my kids, in my life or the addictions and secret sins in my life right now, they’re just going to judge me. They’re going to put me down. If I tell the church it will be gossip.” But if there is any place that ought to be able to help you when you hurt, it ought to be God’s family. For 12yrs., we’ve tried to model this, be open and honest about our own faults and weaknesses. And the other staff and other people.

Let me give you five things to share. What do I share? These are all out of the examples of the Apostle Paul. Paul was honest in all five areas.

1. My failures.
2. My feelings. Some of you men have never done that with your wife.
3. My faults.
4. My frustrations.
5. My fears.

You could take a survey of the Bible to see you that God
always uses weak people. His gift is turning weakness into strength.

Moses – Moses’ greatest weakness was his anger. He got angry one day and killed an Egyptian so he got kicked out of Egypt. He got angry one day and struck a rock that God told him to speak to and that kept him out of the Promised Land. He got angry and threw the Ten Commandments down and broke them. He had to go back and get them again. Anger was Moses’ greatest weakness. And yet, in the Bible, there were only two people called meek. “Meek” means “anger under control” – Jesus and Moses. God took his greatest weakness and turned it into his greatest strength. He was a patient man. He put up with a million babies for forty years in the wilderness.

David is called “a man after God’s own heart.” You’d think Mr. Purity. David stole a man’s wife, committed adultery with her and then had the man killed. I don’t call that purity. Yet David’s greatest area of failure, God turned it around and built strength in his life. He became a man so pure that calls call him a man after His own heart.

Abraham, in the Bible, is called the Father of faith. He’s a spiritual giant. He has enormous faith. Yet when you study Abraham’s life, his greatest weakness was his lack of faith. He was a doubter, always worrying. One time the enemy came and he said to his wife, “Tell them you’re my sister so they won’t kill me to take you.” I’m sure his wife was thinking, “There’s a man of faith!! He’d save his neck by giving his wife away.” God took the man’s greatest weakness and turned it into a strength.

Peter. Jesus came to Peter and said, “You are a rock. You’re going to be called Rock from now on. You’re stable.” Peter was anything but stable. He was Mr. Impulsive. Mr. Foot-in-Mouth. Mr. Do-Something-Impulsively-And-Later-Regret-It. “I’ll never deny You!” then three minutes later he’s denying Him three times! When they came to arrest Jesus, Peter pulls out his sword and knocks off a guy’s ear – that’s before Tyson! Jesus said, “Don’t do that!” and sticks it back on. Peter was Mr. Impulsive. Yet his greatest weakness is turned into a strength.

All of God’s giants have been weak men and weak women.
My favorite of these is Jacob. Jacob was a deceiver. Jacob was a manipulator. Jacob was a schemer. All his life, he spent scheming to get his way. He made one mess after another and then he’d run from it. He ran his entire life because of all the messes. He’d create a mess and run. Create a mess and run. Out of one relationship into another. One night he had a dream. He had a vision that he was wrestling with God. He said, "I’m not going to let go until you bless me, God.” And God said, “Ok, I’ll bless your life.” Then it says He grabs his thigh and pulls his hip out of socket. He touched him. Your thigh muscle is the strongest muscle in your body. God touched him at his greatest point of strength. The Bible says from that point on, Jacob’s life was blessed, but he walked with a limp the rest of his life. Touched at his greatest point of strength and turned into a weakness. Why? Two reason:

1) God wanted him to have a constant reminder: You’ve got to depend on Me from now on. (thorn)

2) Jacob could no longer run away from his problems. That old habit of creating a problem and running from it, he couldn’t do any more because he had a limp.

Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. And the entire nation was named after that guy. It was changed from “Jacob” which means “schemer, deceiver, manipulator” to Israel which means “Prince of God” and the nation of Israel was named after that man.

God wants to take the greatest weakness in your life and turn it into a strength. But if He does, if God blesses your life in a great way, you will walk with a limp the rest of your life. There will be a thorn, a reminder that God’s in charge.

The greatest example of God turning weakness into strength is what Jesus did on the cross and that’s what we remember at communion. “Although He died on the cross in weakness, Jesus now lives in the mighty power of God. We, too, are weak, but we live in Him and have God’s mighty power.”

USING MY WEAKNESSES - part 1

We’re going to look at Using Your Weaknesses. Every one of us has weaknesses. You have physical weaknesses, emotional weaknesses, relational weaknesses, financial weaknesses, intellectual weaknesses. There are things your body can’t do. (How many of you can roll our tongue? Under?) Some of us have fashion weaknesses. We have all different kinds.

The real issues is, What are you going to do with your
weaknesses?

What we normally do is deny them, we defend them, we excuse them, we resent them and most of all we hide them – we don’t want anybody to see our weaknesses. Then God comes along and in the Bible, He says, “You know what I want to do with your weaknesses? I want to use them.” “That doesn’t make sense,” we say, “Use my strengths not my weaknesses.” We think God wants to use our strengths: “I can do this. How come I’m always setting on the shelf here. Use my strengths.”

God does use your strengths obviously. But in the book of Isaiah 55, God says, “My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.” I’m smarter than you. He says, “The way you think I should work is often the exact opposite of the way I really work in life” God says, “I don’t want to work around your weaknesses. I don’t want to work in spite of your weaknesses. I want to work through them – through your weaknesses.”

1 Corinthians 1:27 “God purposely chose what the world considers nonsense in order to put wise men to shame and what the world considers weak, in order to put powerful men to shame.” Underline “God purposely chose” and circle “weak”. It’s not by accident. The weaknesses you have in your life, God purposely chose them and God works through weak people. Why? It demonstrates His power.

When I was a kid, I used to think that Samson was this giant, muscle bound hunk – kind of a Jewish Rambo. Bulging biceps. The truth is that Samson was a very ordinary looking guy. The Bible says that when the enemies looked at him they couldn’t figure out why the guy’s so strong. From all appearance, he just looked normal. He was not some beefcake. The Bible tells us that his strength laid not in his muscles but in the Spirit of the Lord. He probably looked more like Conan O’Brien than he did Schwarzenegger. They couldn’t figure out his secret. It wasn’t muscles.

God is not impressed with might. We are, we’re really impressed with strength and might. But the Bible says in Zachariah 4:6 “`It is not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord.” God says, “I like to choose and use weak ordinary people because that’s when My glory, My grace, My strength, My power shine through the most effectively.”

That’s good news, really good news, because most of us are not extraordinary people. We don’t have bodies like the models. We don’t have extraordinary intellect. We’re just normal, ordinary, average people. God says that’s ok, because I don’t choose to work through natural strength. I choose to work through natural weakness and then My power shines through.”

So this week and in the second half of this message, we’re going to look at how do you not avoid your weaknesses, excuse or resent them, but how does God want to use them in our lives

When I talk about weakness, I’m not talking about sins, character flaws you can change (like overeating, impatience, greed, laziness.) I’m not talking about things you can change.

Weakness is any limitation in my life that I inherited or I cannot change.
There are all kinds of limitations like that.

There are circumstantial limitations that you were born with, that you don’t have any control over that you can’t change – disadvantages, problems, external pressures that you can’t control.

There are financial limitations when you don’t have enough money. Have you ever had unexpected expenses that weren’t your fault? Sure.

There are relational limitations. Some in this world really have a heart for God but their spouse is spiritually apathetic. They don’t care about the Lord. Maybe they’re not even a believer and that’s a limitation in your life. Or you have a difficult child or difficult children or a rebellious child. Or you have a handicapped parent. Something in your life that you either inherited or you cannot control that causes pain in your life.

There are emotional limitations. Some of us have a tendency, a predisposition, to get depressed. It’s in your nature. That’s no sin, just your nature. Some of us have a tendency, a predisposition, to worry about everything. Some of us have a tendency, or predisposition, to lose our temper and get angry. Or to be fearful. It is the natural inclination. When we make bad choices, we give in to that.
We have talent limitations. There are some things you just cannot do and you never will be able to do. Jesus said there are one talent people, and five talent people and ten talent people.
And of course, we have physical limitations. You have a certain amount of energy and no matter how much you work out you’re never going to have more energy than that, given your physique, your make-up. Maybe you deal with a
handicap or bad back, or some other kind of physical limitation in your life.

All of these things, God says, He purposely chose. Why? 2 Corinthians 4:7 “We have this treasure from God, but we are like clay jars that hold the treasure. This shows the great power is from God not from us.” God says, “I put my treasure of wisdom and joy and salvation in you, in your body, but your body is just a clay pot,” and a lot of our bodies are just cracked pots. The thing about clay pots is they break easily. If you drop a clay pot, it breaks. It’s not indestructible. Every clay pot has inherited design faults and flaws in it. It is weak, it is not indestructible. Paul was saying, “Yes, I’m a Christian and God’s in my life but I’m not indestructible. I’m a human being. My body is a clay pot so I have weaknesses in it.” It says that God chooses to do this because it shows the great power in our lives is from God and not from ourselves. God puts His greatest gifts in ordinary containers – like you, like me. Some think, “God could never use me in a great way. I’m just an ordinary person.” You’re the kind of person God uses. He puts His greatest gifts in ordinary containers. He takes ordinary, weak people and uses them in extraordinary ways.

We’re going to look at how can I use my weaknesses?
The Bible says there are three steps. (2 this week)

1. ADMIT MY WEAKNESSES

(vid) That’s obviously the starting point. That means I stop pretending I’ve got it all together. Because I don’t. Nobody has it all together. It means that I stop hoping that my weaknesses will go away if I just ignore them. Out of sight, out of mind. If I pretend they’re not there, maybe they’ll go away. They won’t. It means I stop making excuses for my weaknesses. It means I stop blaming other people for my weaknesses. It means I stop denying that I’ve got them and stop defending them. I just admit I have weaknesses. Nobody has it altogether!

You may be an entrepreneur – small business owners or large corporation owners. This is really the secret of building any effective organization. You first sit down and figure out, What am I good at? What are my strengths? And you start building on your strengths. But you also look at - What are my weaknesses? What am I not good at? What am I really bad at? Then you start hiring people who compensate for your weaknesses. That’s how you build a great team.

That’s what we’re doing here @ FOCUS* I have tried to gather people on our staff who are smarter than me in different areas. Together we compensate for our weaknesses. We don’t all try to be the same kind of person.

Warning: Because God wants you to admit your weaknesses, sometimes He has to bring something into our lives to get us to admit them. That is called a crisis. A crisis is a weakness identifier. When you go through a crisis it says, “Here’s the fault in my life, the failure in my life, the lack, the weakness, the weak spot.” My advice is: Don’t wait. It’s far less painful to identify your weaknesses and admit them up front than having to go through crisis after crisis for God to get you to admit, “I’m not God. You are and I’m not.”

Once you have admitted your weakness you go to step two.


2. I MUST BE GRATEFUL FOR MY WEAKNESSES

You say, “You’ve got to be kidding! I want to come to church and I want you to tell me how to take a magic pill to get rid of all my weaknesses. I don’t want you to tell me to be grateful for them. I want to know how to be freed from them all.” God says, “I want you to learn to be grateful for your weaknesses.” 2 Cor. 12:9 “I have cheerfully made up my mind to be proud of my weaknesses.” I love that phrase, “cheerfully made up my mind.” He says, “… because they mean a deeper experience of the power of Christ.”

Paul’s saying, instead of wasting your time posturing yourself constantly like you’ve got it all together, I am confident, I am composed, and most important I want everybody to think I am in control. He says, since everybody knows that’s not true anyway, instead of posturing yourself and wearing a mask, why don’t you just stop, admit your weaknesses and start focusing on God’s power and realize a deeper
experience of the power of Christ.

I’ve been a Christian for many years. I’ve been around alot of believers and I would say most Christians have never experienced a deeper experience of the power of Christ. Why? Because they haven’t admitted their weaknesses and they haven’t grasped a grateful attitude for them.

I love this verse in the Living Bible, “I’m glad to be a living demonstration of Christ’s power instead of showing off my own power and abilities.” Paul says instead of resenting my weaknesses I’m glad and I’m grateful for them. Why in the world would anybody do that? There are many benefits. You don’t realize it but the weaknesses, the limitations that you inherited and can’t control are actually blessing in disguise.

Four benefits:

1. It guarantees God’s help.
When I have weaknesses in my life, that guarantees God’s help. This next week, when you attempt to face any challenge or solve any problem on your own power, God says, “I’ll step back and watch. Be My guest. Go ahead and do it. If you think you can handle this on your own, great. If you think you can solve that problem at work, if you think you can make that marriage hang together, if you think you can turn that kid around on your own power, be My guest.” And He stands back and watches. “If you think you can pull yourself out of that financial low, go right ahead.” But the moment you come to God and say, “God, I’m weak. I don’t have what it takes for all the pressures that are on in my life, I don’t have what it takes. God, I need You.” God says, “I knew that. I just wanted you to realize it.” Then He plugs you into His power and you realize a deeper experience of God’s power and find power you would never have on your own to make it, to not only survive but to thrive in life.

2 Corinthians 12:10, God says “I am with you. That’s all you need.” We could stop right here and go home because that’s all you need to hear this week. God says, “No matter what you go through this next week, I’m going to be with you and I’m all you need.” You may have a major happenings going on this week - Some of you have a problem you have to solve this week. You have a conflict maybe at home, at work, at school. You need to resolve it this week. You’ve got a difficulty that seems insurmountable. All you need to know is two things. God says, “I’m with you. And that’s all you need.” We don’t usually realize that God is all we need until God is all we’ve got. What happens is, God intentionally allows everything else to fall apart. All those props and gimmicks and all those things that give you safety and all those relationships you think you need to prop you up, all of a sudden go by the wayside. And God is all you have. When God is all you have, you turn to him and realize He’s all you needed in the first place. One plus God equals a majority. If God’s on my side, who can be against me.

God says, “I want to teach you this week that I’m with you and that’s all you need.” Paul says “So when I am weak, then I am strong. In fact, the less I have, the more I depend on Him.” This is a lesson that I have to learn over and over and over. And so do you. We have short-term memory when it comes to this. We’re in a tight financial situation and God comes through with flying colors and bales us out and helps us through it and then the next day we’re acting like an atheist again. We forget how many times He’s worked in our lives. He’s been there. He’s helped us. He’s made it through the situation. We forget. We have to learn this lesson over and over. We naturally resent our limitations.
When there’s something in my life that I’ve inherited and I can’t control it but it causes pain in my life (emotionally, physically, spiritually – any other way) my reaction is “Why me, God? I’m a good guy. I’m trying to live for You. Why did You allow this?”

God says “My power shows up best in weak people.” If that’s true, why should God take away your weaknesses? You know the thing you’ve been praying about – “God, please take this away!” and He hasn’t done it, it’s probably a weakness. God’s saying, “My power shows up best in your weakness. Why in the world would I take it away?” If you didn’t have any weaknesses in your life, if you could solve every problem and meet any need instantly, how much would you depend on God? Zip! Not at all. You’d think you were God. If you could meet every need and solve every problem, you’d think you were God. “I’m invincible! I’m the master of my faith” God says, “No, you’re not. You’re a human being. I made you and I love you and I created you and in your weakness, that’s where My power shows up strongest.”

2. It prevents arrogance.
2 Cor. 12:7 “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassing great revelations, it was given to me a thorn in my flesh.” What is a thorn? He said, “I have a thorn in my flesh to keep me from getting arrogant.” God blessed his life so much. He’d learned so many things. He’d had so many great revelations from God. (He got to write most of the New Testament.) God gave him a thorn.

What is a thorn? It is a weakness. It is a limitation I’ve inherited or cannot change that causes me pain and limits my ministry. He says this was given to him as a reminder. If Paul could have changed it, he would have. In fact, the Bible says he prayed three times, “God, take this away.” And God said, “I’m not going to do it because My grace is sufficient for you.” That thing you’ve been praying, “God take this away in my life,” and He hasn’t, it may be a thorn.
It may be your thorn.

Thorns are given by God so they’re not sins. God doesn’t give sin. If thorns were sin and you prayed, “God, take it away,”
He would. Because God always removes sin. So we’re not talking about some sin in your life.

Some thorns are temporary in our lives. Some thorns are removed gradually. Some you have for a lifetime, as with Paul.
What does a thorn do in my life? It’s that persistent perplexity that causes me pain, that gets my attention, keeps me dependent upon God, keeps me humble before Him. It acts as a governor on my life. It guides and directs me and it
motivates me.
It’s my thorn. (migraines; cant talk, cant breath) I’ve asked God to take it away but He hasn’t. But the greatest pain in my life has also been the greatest blessing in my life because it’s kept me dependent upon God. It’s kept me close to Him.
If God is ever going to use you in a great way, expect a thorn. He will do it to get your attention.

It may not be a physical thing like mine. It may be a relational, emotional, some other kind of thorn. But it will come because it prevents arrogance and it guarantees God’s help.

3. It causes me to value others.
One of the dangers of strength is that it breeds an independent spirit. If I don’t have any weaknesses in my life, I tend to think, “I don’t need anybody!” I don’t need to be in a small group. I don’t need any close relationships. I don’t need you. I’ve got it all together.” But God made us to value each other. He wants us to value each other. So nobody gets all the gifts. Nobody gets all the pieces of the puzzle. You need other people to complete the puzzle in your life.

One of the biggest lies in our society is that significance is the same thing as prominence but it’s not. Significance is not prominence. In our society, we tend to think if you’re well known then what you have to say is very important. But you can be a celebrity and be living a totally trivial life. Just because you’re well known or prominent does not mean you’re important in the whole scheme of life. A celebrity is not necessarily a hero. Too often we confuse that in our society. We think if you’re well known then you’re a hero. No you’re not.

You may have some very prominent features physically (eyes, great smile, cute nose) But they’re not very significant. You could lose your nose and live the rest of your life it may prominent; but it’s not significant. On the other hand, there’s some things like a spleen, a liver, both kidneys. They’re not seen, not prominent at all, but they’re far more significant. We can’t live without those things.

The Bible says, “Some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are really the most necessary.” That’s true in the body of Christ. God allows each of us to have weaknesses, so that all the parts will recognize their need for each other. “The hand can’t say to the foot, `I don’t need you.’ And the eye can’t say to the ear, `I don’t need you.’” We need each other. God allows us to have weaknesses so we see the value of other people.

You make a strong rope, not by making one solid cord. That breaks pretty easy. You make a strong rope by putting a lot of strands together – a lot of strands of weak cords. When you take a lot of weak cords and put them all together, you’ve got a pretty strong rope.

You’re pretty weak and I’m pretty weak, but together we can do stuff that nobody thinks is possible otherwise. That’s the value of unity. That’s the value of church family. A person without a church family is a weakling. You don’t have any other support. All you have is your part of the puzzle. You don’t have all the other pieces. I’m not talking about just coming to church, listening to the sermon and going on out. I’m talking about getting involved, developing relationships, getting in a community group, so that when a crisis hits your life there’s somebody there to support you. And you’re there to help others when they go through crisis. Because it’s inevitable.

4. It gives me a ministry.
God puts you on earth, not just to live for yourself, but to help other people. Your greatest ministry will flow out of your weaknesses. The greatest life message, the message that God wants to say to the world through you (what He put you here on earth for), your greatest life message, may come out of your deepest hurt. The very thing that causes you the most grief and pain, God can use in the ministry and can use it as a message for other people to encourage them. The thing you’re most embarrassed about, the thing you’re most ashamed of, the thing you don’t want anybody else to know about, you want to hide it, put in a closet, forget it, push it out of your mind – God wants to use that to encourage other people. Pain makes us more sensitive to the hurts of others.

If you want to have a Christ-like ministry, that means sometimes other people are going to be helped, encouraged and even healed by the wounds in your life. Jesus Christ, received a bunch of wounds in His body and we all benefited from it. You will go through some pains in your life that, if you will admit them, be grateful for them, learn to share them with others (the lessons you’ve learned), others will be benefited by it. It becomes a ministry.

2 Corinthians 1:4 “God comforts us in our troubles so that we can comfort those in trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received.” Most people have pain. God comforts us in our problems.
And we can turn around and comfort others with the same comfort we’ve been given. Who could better help somebody who’s going through a divorce, than somebody who’s had a husband or wife walk out on them and leave them for somebody else? They know that sting of rejection. Who could better help somebody who’s just been devastated by unemployment than somebody who’s went through that? Who after 20-30 years of faithful service was canned? Who could better help somebody come out of a gay lifestyle than somebody who was stuck in a gay lifestyle and found freedom? Who could better help somebody with a Down Syndrome child than somebody who had a Down Syndrome child? Who could better minister to a family who’s had a teenage son or daughter go off the deep end, get into drugs, have a teen pregnancy than somebody who went through that very experience themselves?

God never wastes a hurt. God will use the thing in your life that you are most ashamed of, most embarrassed by, most heartbroken over to encourage other people if you’ll learn to admit it, see what God wants to do in it, be healed yourself through it and begin to share it with others.

Raising the Bar - Connecting Out-of-Network

Review - turn to Luke 17
Draw a triangle on your outline - at the top write the word God, next to God write the word up - Imagine our lives as a triangle, God created us in life to be connected upward - true meaning in life always comes from being connected to God -
That is where balance of life comes from, if we’re always doing stuff for other people and ourselves life will be out of balance

- we need to be connected to God to for real balance in life. On left side of triangle write ‘IN’ - God not only created us to connect upward, He also created us to connect Inward - meaning we all value relationships, not one of us at the core of our selves does not want to be loved and accepted.

He created us to be connected inward, He created us to be in community, to do life with other people w/in small
communities, small pockets of people that we begin to connect inward to enjoy life with, do life with in network.

On right side of triangle write the word ‘OUT” - with an arrow pointing away - He never created us, the church to just be connected in-network, just us alone w/in these walls - never God’s intention for us to take on this mentality of ‘Us 4 and no more’ - He also created us so we could connect outward, to connect out-of-network, b/c we live in a world of people, that unless they hear it from you or me, they will never ever know. We can never assume that someone else is going to share that love, we can never make that assumption that, “well someone else is going to take care of it” (rom.10)

God created a balanced journey with Him to be a life connected up, connected w/in, connected outward.
Luke 17:11

Jesus is on His final steps towards Jerusalem, here’s what He knows that the cross is coming and the cross is coming soon, we need to know that here, b/c if you and I were on our last journey of life, those things that we chose to teach, the things we chose to do would probably be or something we considered pretty important - if you were on your last weeks of life, how many of you would waste time?

Jesus is thinking, I’m gonna leave behind these few guys who are going to carry on my work, the mission, so... here are the things I want them to know. read v.11

Samaria is a place where a good Jew wouldn’t even let the dust on his sandals get near, they wouldn't even travel thru Samaria b/c they didn’t want the dust of Samaria on their shoes. Samaritans at that time were considered half-breeds, these mixed races that no one wanted anything to do with.

It’s interesting how often you find Christ telling good stories about Samaritans or traveling through Samaria.
In His journey now there’s this interesting exchange about to happen - v.12a

To have leprosy during this time, is not like having a bad case of acne, this is bad stuff, this stuff will kill you, there’s no cure, there’s no treatment - when you contracted leprosy, no matter what race you were you became an outcast (you may want to write in the margin of your bible to remind you, ‘outcast’) So it didn’t matter who you knew or how much you knew, you never associated with a leper, ever, you did not do it - it was commonly thought they will share the disease with you and so when you approached a lepers presence, they yelled, ‘Unclean, Unclean - then they would remove themselves and keep themselves at a distance -
they were outcasts.
As Jesus is traveling here, it says He comes upon a village and He meets these 10 guys w/ leprosy - circle 10, gona come to that - So here is Jesus, the Son of God, on His way to the cross, busy, has a lot to cram into a small amount of time - He really doesn’t need 10 outcasts disturbing the journey, you know what I mean? But Christ often goes against what we think would be the natural route - v.12b-13

They say something here, Jesus, Master have pity on us or compassion on us, it’s interesting they didn’t call Him Rabbi, but Master. You know what Master meant: the one we know that can meet our needs. Umm - they have yelled to others no doubt, but Jesus, this guy they’ve heard of, they know He heals, He gives sight to the blind, enables cripple to walk, has raised people from the dead, there’s hope - ‘pity on us’

v.14, ‘when He saw them’ ahh, big difference here, not with these eyes (eyes) but with these eyes (heart) - there’s a
difference between seeing and Seeing - there’s a difference between knowing there’s a need, and Seeing there’s a need
(Ex. Makeover: see with your heart and it is broken and cries out for them in their plight)

When Jesus saw them, timeout, busy, lot of places to be, lot of things to do - but He saw them w/ the eyes of His heart and then He said this - v. 14 - healed, but not on the spot, as they were on their journey back to see the priest they were healed - read v.15-16 and he was a what?, a Samaritan, the one that really didn’t fit in - we believe all the others were Jews, all healed, no strings attached, all touched with nothing in return. One said thank you, listen, I don’t want you to miss this, but the 9 to Him were worth it. B/c they now knew what their Heavenly Father thought of them, whether they understood it or not. read v.17-19

Meaning he was set free now on the inside - interesting story
I have taught on this passage a few times, always referencing the one who came back - but this story, He healed all ten didn’t He? With no strings attached - I’d like you to write down that little phrase, “With No Strings Attached” -
there’s a message in it for all of us.
(Cathleen and I moved here in ‘96 for ministry purposes and we believed someday we’d Pastor. We came with a
message LAF, we gotta LAF - Love, Accept, Forgive - listen, ‘with no strings attached -
it’s not about the one who comes back, we’re about all 10)

Jesus modeled this for us and He left us with the commission to go into all the world and tell the good news, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Sprit. B/c God is all about others. He wants us too, to be all about others
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything” Matthew 5:13

Jesus said, ‘If a seasoning has no flavor, it has no value. - So if we... Christ followers make no effort to affect the world around us, well... It is our job, our call to be the salt.
To affect those in our realm of influence the way Jesus did -

THE S.A.L.T. APPROACH

SEE COMPASSIONATELY
So that we can see with these eyes(heart), not these eyes (head) - here’s the deal, we’ve talked about partnering w/ YWAM in Montrose and helping all those people, up to 150 a week, now how many of them have ever returned to say, ‘thank you’? - So should we quit?
They don’t line up outside of the Y each Sunday yearning to come in here and grab a seat - so why do we go?
B/c God has taught us to see compassionately, to see w/ the eyes of our heart.
When we see w/ the eyes of our hearts we say, “they have no hope unless we go” We want to make a difference for the Kingdom of God, it’s not about our church, it’s about THE Church and we can’t make the assumption that someone else will do it.
When he saw them, ( here’s the difference - when we see someone hurting or who needs help from here [head] we say, “ahh, that’s too bad” but when we see it from here [heart] it tears us up, keeps you up at night - you see people wandering around at night and they’re hopeless, no future, no direction - we are called to be a people who see
compassionately- not for what we get in return, that is not the issue, we do what God has called us to do - does that make sense?) he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. Luke 17:14

ACCEPT FREELY
The lepers had the social stigma of the day - they were the outcasts, no one wanted anything to do w/ them -
and the guy from Samaria had a doubly bad time

God has called us to be there for people who don’t even want anything to do with God, much less Christianity. “Ahh those people are a bunch of hypocrites, they only want your money” or whatever...

Until you walk into their lives and love them w/ no strings attached, you love them until they say why?
Why in the world would you care about me, care for me?
You know the answer? B/c that’s what my Savior did for me.
Did any of you have anything to offer God? I didn’t - It’s kinda like a gag gift - we get Heaven, streets of gold, eternal feasting and so forth... God gets us
He accepts freely - the down and out, the broken-hearted, the broken dreams, and He’ll help you put the pieces back together again

God did not call us to get up on our soap box and call out everything everyone is doing wrong, does it mean we
condone sin? NO, but they may not know any better or even care about it right now, but it doesn’t matter, that’s not our job! We have been called to accept freely. W/out judgement, w/out condemning, "Why haven’t you been at church? What’s wrong w/ you?" - not our job, just accept freely.
(photos - accept?)
As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him… He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. Luke 17:12+16

LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY
We are called to love others. That’s what God wants, “love you neighbor as yourself.” In living a balanced life we
connect up, and w/in and out-of-network.
However it’s not always that easy to love others is it?
We don’t always feel up to the challenge do we? There are some freaky, weird, wacked-out people out there, and I’m not just talking about your extended family.
Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Luke 17:17-18
All were healed, Jesus didn’t hold anything back, He did not withhold His love for the others, b/c oh by the way, Jesus knew, He knew they were not going to return, but He did it anyway, He loved them all the same.

On our cell phone packages that we pay monthly, it always cost more to connect out of network, right? I mean we pay our monthly fee, it includes a certain amount of minutes and in-network is free! But to connect out of network, you’re gona pay for that.
Isn’t that true in life, it may cost us more to reach out to the unlovable, the unwanted, those who may not give anything in return, but you never know the day you walk into their life may have been the day they were considering walking out on life, ending it all, giving up completely. That’s what God has called us to do, and that’s what He has modeled for us to do. Not to be a church that says, hey everybody come here, but He called us to GO - be salt to those who need LAF, be salt to those in your realm of influence.

TOUCH PRACTICALLY
You know one of the things I love about Jesus’ life is that when He gave He meet physical needs, nothing in return.
Hey when we love this way, our lives will change and others will notice - is this the way our world loves? No, we love w/ strings don’t we? I’ll love you if you love me, ever do break-up in H.S. we’ll still be friends, no you won’t, you’ll never speak again - you begin to love w/out strings, the world will notice and be careful what it may do to you
Can you imagine what would happen if all of us started to LAF to Love, Accept, Forgive others unconditionally, what do you think would happen? Oh WOW, the world would wonder where you came from, “yer not from ‘round here is yas?”
…they were cleansed. Luke 17:14b
We are called to be salt of the earth, to See
Compassionately, Accept Freely, Love Unconditionally,
and Touch Practically.