Transcription
It's not that problems attract power. It's that problems create the opportunity for surrender that attracts power. There's a humility that comes into the heart of a person that is facing these unanswered prayers, these crises, these dilemmas if you go low enough and keep your heart connected to the one.
See, the gospel is not redefined by our experience. He is absolute. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, but let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
Is there anybody else in the room that wants to be lacking nothing? I mean, that's an extraordinary promise. It's one of the largest in scripture. Um, but here's I want you to see this word patience. A friend of mine wrote this tremendous book called Throne Life and in it he says the word translated patience two times in these verses is defined as independent, unyielding, defiant perseverance in the face of aggressive misfortune and thus to a kind of courageousness. Another scholar suggests it's not the resignation of the passive sufferer like our modern use of the word patience as much as the fortitude of a stout-hearted soldier. One more perspective may be helpful. It's the characteristic of a man who is unswerved in his deliberate purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety that even the greatest trials and sufferings can't deter from.
This word patience is almost a military term. It's an absolute, complete resolve to not budge in the face of difficulty, not to give in or be defined by a problem, but instead to rise with such a fierce determination that we are unmoved in challenges or difficulty.
Let's read it again. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith with no doubting. He who doubts is like the wave of the sea driven and tossed by wind. Let not that man suppose he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
Verse 12, blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him.
Verse 18, of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Look at verse 18 again. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
Let me stop here for this verse just a moment. We'll read a couple more and then we'll go back to the beginning and talk. The one who spoke the worlds into being, spoke you into life and literally spoke his truth to you and caused you to be born again by the spirit of the resurrected Christ that took up residence in you. But it was the declared word of God. He declared his will over you. He declared his nature over you. His word is actually the seed of his own nature. And he declared the seed of his own nature and he planted it into your soul, into mine, and it helps to bring about continuous transformation of our lives according to his design, his purpose, his will. And he says that this word causes us to be the first fruits of his new creation. Since Genesis 1, there's not been a new creation. He's done many glorious works, but there's never been something new created until you could be born again.
And then he said, you are a new creation created in Christ Jesus, created for good works, a brand new creation. 1 Peter 2 says that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that we may proclaim the excellencies of him who's called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. He calls us a new creation, a new people. So here in this passage, James is addressing the fact that you are born again by the will of God. And he demonstrated that will when he spoke life into you. And that life is the testimony that you are part of a whole new creation, a new race, a new chosen people. That's literally what the Bible teaches.
As strange as it may sound, this kingdom that we are part of just works differently. I should have it down by now, but I don't. I'm constantly surprised by how different his thinking is to mine. He actually thinks this way that you live by dying. I mean, he didn't make it up to challenge our thinking. He actually thinks that way. Yeah. He actually thinks that by humbling ourselves is how we're exalted. He actually thinks that giving is how you receive. And here is the greatest prize of all. It says, "You want to be perfect, you want to lack nothing, celebrate your trials." All of this stuff that is being dealt with here and is being dealt with in our lives is to work into us a practical expression of the lordship of Jesus. It's always what's being challenged.
Israel coming out of Egypt into the promised land. As long as the bread was flowing, as long as the water was coming, as long as things were going well, they were a people that loved to worship God. They were a happy group that rejoiced. But when they got thirsty, they would complain. And then they would ask Aaron, "Create another God for us that can lead us into the promised land." The issue is lordship, that often times celebrating Jesus as Lord is easy when things are working. But anxiety, frustration, the kinds of things that all of us experience reduce us to our true level of faith. And it's in that moment we actually discover what has actually been developed in our lives. Complaining reveals entitlement. We all hate entitlement in other people. I hate when you feel entitled.
So here's this challenge. This issue that's at stake here is a challenge to the practical level in which we experience and live in this realm called the lordship of Jesus. He never exposes these things for punishment. He never exposes them to shame or to ridicule. Instead, what he does is he exposes areas of weakness to create in us hunger because he exposes areas of weakness with promise so that we would have an appetite for the more that God has purposed to do in our lives. He does so to awaken in us passion, to awaken in us a dream, to awaken in us the desire for all that he's promised.
You know, in Psalms 37, he talks about waiting on the Lord. And that word actually for waiting actually means to lie in wait. It gives the picture of setting up an ambush. It's not this sitting in a recliner waiting. It's not inactivity. Waiting isn't inactivity. It's focused and directed activity. It's refining all of our appetites down to the one thing. There are certain seasons in life. You can have interest here and interest there. But I think everybody's had the experience where you've had a crisis or a difficulty or something and all of a sudden nothing matters. In fact, you don't even feel sometimes like you even need to eat and forget to eat a meal or two or three or whatever. It's like things get so refined in focus. And there are just seasons where that's vital. It's vital that nothing else speaks to you but the one thing. There are seasons, there are periods of time where we have this invitation by the Lord and we just cut everything back. You know, you may be involved in this league and in this activity and that activity, and they're all good. They're all great opportunities to interact with people and to impact community, but there are just times where things are going out so crazy, you just trim everything back, but just the one thing. And it's wisdom to know when to do that. And the outcome of that is that you see so much more clearly. You see much more clearly. You see more when you refine your focus.
And the Lord gave a gift to every person in this room that's been born again. It's the gift of sight. It's the gift of sight, seeing an unseen world. Because he said unless you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is invisible. The effects are visible, but the kingdom itself is invisible. I think I mentioned last week or week before sometime that if we stand out there in the lobby and look out the windows, we can't tell if the wind is blowing by seeing the wind. We can only see the effects. We can see the flags moving, the leaves on the trees, clothing, somebody's hair. You can only see the effects. And learning to recognize the effects of the kingdom, the present tense reality of the kingdom is part of what the Lord is teaching us. He's teaching us how his world works so that we know how to recognize when he shows up.
I remember when we came here 20 plus years ago, there was a lot of excitement in the air because we talked about revival. But when he came different than what everybody expected, that was really difficult for many. You know, after Jesus raised from the dead, he showed up to the guys on the road to Emmaus, they didn't recognize. When he walked through the wall where the disciples were hiding for fear of the Jews, his own disciples that had spent day and night with him for three and a half years, they didn't recognize him. And he has a habit of showing up different than he did the last time. And what helps us to recognize him is the voice and the presence.
When Mary Magdalene was in the garden weeping because of the death of Christ and the body was missing and she was so distraught because Jesus's body was gone and she's weeping in the garden and Jesus is standing behind her. That's why you're weeping. She thinking he was the gardener said, "If you've taken him away, please tell me where you've taken him and I'll take him." And then he said, "Mary." It's awesome to know the voice that knows your name. So good. That's amazing because when he speaks, he speaks to the deep of us. It's different. She never would have recognized him by form. She only recognized him by voice. And the Lord has a habit of showing up in ways that we're not accustomed to. And I, probably as much as anybody in here, I love reading about revival history. The only drawback is is we tend to expect him to come the way he did sometime in history and it just doesn't always do that.
This portion has meant a lot to me personally because it shows me how to number one how to deal with mourning. Every one of us have disappointment. Every one of us have loss. Every one of us got stuff that we have no explanation for. You just get that in life. And if you don't know how to navigate that stuff, you end up crippled. You can call it whatever you want. You can call it, well, that's just not my gift. That's not my calling. But really, you're just resisting to step into who you are because you're hurt.
This issue of pain. He says here it says that they were mourning in verse 10 and they did not believe. Mourning will take you one of two places. First of all, mourning is biblical if it takes you to God. Blessed are they who mourn for they shall be what? Comforted. Say it again. Comforted. Blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted. So here's the point. There is one route to go in mourning where I don't have the answers. I don't have the solutions. I don't have some great strategy. All I know is who to come to. And I come to this place in abandonment, oftentimes in worship, in the sacrifice of thanksgiving when it doesn't feel good but I do it anyway. In that engagement with the person of the Holy Spirit, he comes and he comforts. There's one direction to go in mourning that takes you to the Comforter. The other takes you to unbelief. And we can call it all kinds of religious titles. But the bottom line is is I'm in pain. I don't have answers for it. And I'm going to keep the routine up. I'm just not going to be as involved in that area. I just suffered great loss. I'm not going to pray for the sick like I was. And it's not always thought through. It's just what we do. It's we react to, oh, we suffered loss with cancer. I'll just somebody else has the anointing for that. I'll seek for people who have injured legs or something. You know, we rationalize instead of going head-on into the area where we need to be healed.
When he brings healing to a broken heart, it doesn't, at least for me, it doesn't initially start with answers. Most of the time, I don't need answers anyway. I need a person. I need presence. I if I can have the peace that passes understanding, I'm good. Which for me has meant I have to give up my right to understand.
There's something about coming into that place of engaging with the person of the Holy Spirit where I'm engaging with him in surrender. I'm not there to dictate to him. I'm not with him so that I can become successful in life. I'm there because he's God and I'm not. I think I mentioned it last week. I saw the sign. It said, "The only difference between you and God is he's not trying to be you." Excuse me. That's not the only difference, but you got the point. All right. All right.
So, this thing of mourning then takes me in one of two directions. It either takes me to a place of healing, comfort from the Comforter, or to unbelief. Now, picture being the disciples. You're huddled together in a home. You're scared to death because Jesus was just brutally murdered before your eyes. You're afraid you might be next. If there's anything you don't feel, it's resistance to truth. You feel demoralized. Maybe you feel weakened. There's probably tears. There's probably all this stuff going on in the room. But the one thing you don't feel like is a hardness of heart. And yet, when Jesus walks in the room, he rebuked them for their hardness of heart. See, hardness of heart isn't evident through strong self-will. Hardness of heart is oftentimes evidence in the unwillingness to deal with the pain that's in your life. Unwillingness to come to the Lord for him to bring healing out of that which makes no sense. And what happens is it builds a resistance in us. The scary thing to me about this story is here's the guys that are going to be taking on the message to shape the course of world history. And Jesus starts off his relationship with them with a rebuke. This is his first interaction with them after the resurrection. And he's basically saying, "Listen, I sent messengers to you. You didn't believe them. I told you ahead of time what would happen. Then I sent messengers." Here's part of the problem. The first messenger was Mary Magdalene. First of all, in this male-dominated culture, women were counted. Not saying it's right. I'm just saying that's the culture of the day. And so these guys that are running things, who does Jesus first reveal himself to? Not just women, Mary Magdalene. The demonized, tormented one. Jesus chooses her first, or the Father did. However it works, it was chosen.
I remember here's part of the problem is you have to learn to recognize when God is speaking not because it makes sense to you but because you recognize the presence of God released when they speak. I know that may sound abstract to you, but I've been harping on that for years and I feel like the Lord wants to bring it up again. It's recognizing the presence.
Jesus taught this in John 6, this incredible chapter where he multiplies food. First, the crowds crowd is there, at least 15,000, probably it was 5,000 men besides women and children, so we're looking at maybe 15 or 20,000 people. Anyway, a whole bunch of folks. And Jesus multiplied a boy's lunch to feed them all. The lunch of someone who wasn't counted, multiplied the food of one who didn't count because it counted to him. And then in this dialogue, he tells everybody they have to eat his flesh, drink his blood, which grosses everybody out. And he doesn't bother to do the pastoral thing and give explanation. He could have easily calmed everyone down by just taking them in their own Jewish history and showing them where it was, you know, where it was foretold, how this would be coming up. But he didn't bother. He didn't want a group of people that were together because they agreed. Towards the end of this time, people started leaving and he makes this comment to his disciples. He said, "My words to you are spirit and they're alive. My words become presence and that presence gives life." So every word that comes to us from the heart of God carries presence with it.
He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of God may rest upon me. I'm going to boast in weakness that the power of God would rest upon me. Verse 10, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, I am strong." I don't know if this is making sense to you or not. Let me just illustrate it this way.
There are times where the power of God is displayed because of the aggressive obedience of the servant of the Lord. I've seen moments where friends have just aggressively stepped into a place. In fact, I have one friend who preached to this entire crowd and told them if this blind person is not healed, I will renounce this gospel. Thankfully, his whole team was going, "Oh no, oh no." And the blind eyes opened. But there are times where that aggressive faith. I was with Mario. In fact, he was here at Beth many years ago, Mario Murillo, and he had this lady stand up in the center aisle and said, "Stand up." She stood up. He says, "You have a tumor right here. You've not even told your husband." And then he declared that thing just disappeared. She dropped to the ground. And sometimes there's just this display of the gospel, just this aggressive, aggressive display of faith. And I like that. But this is like the power of God is kind of like two-part epoxy. When the two are brought together, there's an exponential increase in the demonstration of power. And the second part comes in the strangest way. It comes in weakness. You can only discover the second demonstration of power by embracing loss. By acknowledging this didn't work out the way I said it would. This disappointment here that will forever mark my life. This is a moment of weakness.
See, it's not that problems attract power. It's that problems create the opportunity for surrender that attracts power. Wow. There's a humility that comes into the heart of a person that is facing these unanswered prayers, these crises, these dilemmas if you go low enough and keep your heart connected to the one. See, the gospel is not redefined by our experience. That's right. The nature of God is not redefined by what I've experienced or not experienced. He is absolute. Yes. Yes.
And in this loss and disappointment and the stuff that every one of us go through, you know, I've got the stories. I've got the testimonies. I don't lack there, but the ones that stick the most are the losses. And those moments are invitations to discover power on another level. This time, son, you're going to access the power of the gospel through weakness. Yeah. Through weakness. It's embracing that which didn't work. It's embracing the moment that seemed to backfire. Embrace the moment that you're criticized, you're mocked, you're written about, you're preached against, you're whatever it might be. Fill in the blanks for you how it works in your world. But the fact I took a stand for the gospel and it didn't work out like I thought. Is that the end of the story? No. It's the back door to the throne room where great power is demonstrated. It's almost like I can't. This isn't a conclusion from scripture, not in the scripture. It's almost like the Lord is saying if you can trust me with loss, I can trust you with gain. If you can trust me with your weakest moments, I can trust you with demonstrations of power. I can trust you with an increase in that which brings breakthrough.
See, this school that we are all in, once you said yes to Jesus, you got put into school. And this school is aggressive faith. It is hearing from God. It's declaring the word of God. It's proclaiming boldly this gospel, but it's also what do you do when it didn't work? What do you do when you suffer personal loss instead of the triumph you had anticipated your whole life? What do you do there? That's the moment right there. And it's like that is the moment. That's the moment where destinies are decided. It's the moment where destinies are decided. Because in the moment of weakness, in the moment of brokenness, to still say yes opens the opportunity for God to say yes. And in his yes, there is a more complete demonstration of the power of the gospel. I believe that's what the Lord's looking for. He's looking for it from you. He's looking for it from me.
We just had a testimony time early this morning in our staff prayer time. And it was just extraordinary, the stories again from this past week, the miracles that have happened. And you know, you just sit there, or sometimes I just pinch myself in a staff gathering where I hear the stories of miracle after miracle after miracle and I don't ever get tired of them. And I like even hearing them where I suffered loss. Wow. I like hearing them there because I want to make sure that my compass is still due north. I want to make sure that my heart is calibrated to his nature, his covenant, his promise. And it doesn't get twisted because of experience or lack of experience. I'm accountable for that. I'm accountable to protect this priceless gift called the gospel. Yeah. Priceless gift.
Paul takes this group of people through this journey and he tells them, "Listen, I came to you in a specific way. I don't know any other time where he came that way where he came without the brilliant stories and without all the stuff that he's been to the third heaven. He can impress people with his thoughts and concepts. He's like the genius of geniuses. Believe me, he can impress people. But he chose, he chose instead, can I say an experiment? I'm going to come in lower than normal. And I want to leave room for him. Because when you have that moment of loss, of pain, of whatever it might be, the moment of weakness, when he shows up, nobody will give you the credit. Only God gets the credit for that because they recognize the pain, the loss, but they also recognize you made room."
That's kind of what I feel like we do. We make room in our time, with our words, our expectations, with our prayers, our everything. We create room for God to show up and do what only he can do. The moment that most of us fear in life, that moment where you feel like you have nothing, where what you have lost reduces you, is actually what Paul said he would celebrate.
Life is just filled with choices, you know. That's our every day, just choices. But sometimes the kingdom shows up in the most unusual ways. The kingdom, the reality of God's dominion becomes manifest when we make the most unusual choice. And that is to celebrate weakness. Yeah. To grab the moment of loss and go, "Wow, this is going to turn out so good, and I won't be able to take any credit for what's about to happen."
See, there's something about grabbing these moments as a part of our yes. All of us experience them. Many people try to manage them. Others deny them, ignore them. But to embrace them in your yes, to embrace them in your surrender is an unusual form of weakness where you just come in low. And in that place of absolute surrender, you become the person he can entrust with greater power.
You know, we're not looking for. I don't need to see power to be entertained. You know, it's not like I need another notch in my Bible. It's. To be honest, I feel like I'm in debt. I feel like I owe him. He commanded me to walk in the power of the gospel. If it's not happening, the problem is not with him. The problem is not with him. He's not the problem. The shortage is not on his end of the equation. It's either truth or it's not. We should figure out something else to do with our lives. But if it's the truth, then we make every necessary adjustment for this gospel to be demonstrated in the way it was through Jesus's mouth. I see glimpses. I taste. I celebrate. I want more. I suffer loss. I have pain. I have stuff that doesn't work. Two-part epoxy. It's the second part of power that is about to be inserted into my life. If I'll grab the hard parts and make sure that I surrender those too, I surrender them in hope, believing God's going to receive a lot of glory out of this one. He's going to receive a lot of glory because this is a part of the offering. This is a part of my yes.
I don't have the luxury of choosing when to give thanks. I have the responsibility to give him a place for him to demonstrate who he is. And sometimes it's the deaf ears that open. And sometimes it's your own son that walks out of the room, not healed. And he gets all of them. Every one of these moments are moments to give as a gift, as an offering, knowing his way, his timing. This gospel must be preached with power. It is not optional. And for that to be done well, he's got to get the heart stuff, too.
It was a servant girl named Esther, small in the eyes of herself and everyone else, that became queen. It was a kid on the backside of the wilderness with a slingshot and a harp who became king. See, small, devoted to Christ, you may say, "I just don't have very many gifts." Kathryn Kuhlman was famous for this. She said, "I have no gifts." She wasn't a beautiful model that was preaching. She wasn't this profound, revelatory preacher. She just was a person God liked to hang out with. And that's all she needed. She would literally walk down the aisle of an airport and people would just fall out under the power of God. There'd be extraordinary miracles that would take place just by accident. Why? Because the small that she had was entirely his. Entirely his.
You know, I'm thankful. We have so many gifted people here. So many unusual gifts and talents and I love seeing every one of those talents devoted to Jesus. And if you have a thousand or you have one, I don't care. Just make sure it's all his and then it's just fun to see what he does with it. But at this moment today, I felt strong that I'm to lift up the small and remind you what he does with small things. The scripture actually says, "Don't despise the day of small beginnings." That's not a suggestion. It's a commandment. It's a commandment because small things are often fragile and by disrespect, disregard, not giving proper value, actually causes the fragile seed of this massive oak tree, the fragile acorn that has just started to sprout. It often causes the abortion of the miracle because of disregard and disrespect for small things. Small things. He thinks differently in some ways.
Perhaps my favorite story is of Gideon. Chris did a great job preaching on Gideon today. In Judges 7:6 and 7, he's going to go to war and he's got um he's just outnumbered crazy by this enemy army. And so they put out the news, 32,000 soldiers come to join Gideon in this battle. And the Lord says, "You've got too many." And he says, "Tell everyone who's afraid to go home." So 22,000 soldiers, "Go home." Now, if you're in the 10,000 that wasn't afraid at 32, you might now be afraid to. Can we take that boat over again? You know, so he's got now he's got 10,000 and he was already seriously outnumbered. Now he's crazy outnumbered. And the Lord says, "You still have too many." He says, "Take them to the water." I've actually been to this place in Israel where they drank from the water. And he took them to the water. And he says, "I want you to watch these 10,000 guys. I want you to watch how they drink." And there were some that just got down on all fours and just put their face into the water and they would drink. Others got down like this. And it says they brought the water in their hand to their mouth. So what is that? That's a soldier that is alert. He hasn't lost sight of his responsibility. 9,700 of them lost sight that they were called to war. 300 brought the water to their mouth with their eyes alert and open.
The point I want to make is that when God wanted to demonstrate he could win with a smaller army, he didn't take 300 depressed people. He didn't take the worst soldiers. He wasn't trying to illustrate that he could function through weakness. He was trying to illustrate he could function through quality, through excellence, through purity of devotion. No matter the number, no matter the size, it was the quality of the devotion that made the difference. It was the quality of the yes. The quality of the yes. And the renewed mind is looking for the quality of the yes.
I love it when the place is packed day after day, time after time in our gatherings. I love going places around the world and just seeing the stadiums or the auditoriums or whatever feel that's wonderful. But if I have a choice to stand with a thousand hope-filled people or one person with bold faith, I'll choose the one. Because it's just the faith the size of a mustard seed. Then I'm not putting down the hope thing because I think we got to be driven by hope. But do you understand the illustration I'm trying to make? Why is faith so important? Let's see if I can find a place to land here this talk tonight.
There are two absolutes in scripture. We know in 1 Corinthians 13, the great love chapter, he says there's faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. Do you know that it is impossible for you to give perfect love away unless you have first received? It says, "We love him because he first loved us." Why is love so important to him? Why is it so important for him to require of me that I would love him and I would love others? Why would that be his number one priority for my life? Because the implication is I can't do it unless I become the recipient of his love.
See, it's like worship in John 4, the great story of the woman at the well, and Jesus gives this incredible revelation of worship. He said, "The time is coming and now is when those who worship God will worship in spirit and in truth." And he says the Father is looking for worshippers who will worship him in spirit and truth. Why is the Father looking for worship? It doesn't say he's looking for worship. He's not an egotist in need of our applause. He's not insecure. He's not looking for our affirmation. He has as little interest in public opinion. He's God. He's quite secure. Why is he looking for worshippers? Because worshippers always become like whatever they worship. So for him to want me to be a worshipper is for me to behold him and watch me become transformed by him. His hunger for me to be a worshipper is actually his love expression for me. Because he could want nothing better for me than for me to be like him. Why would he require of me that love be the great priority of my life? Because I can't give away what I've not received. The implication is that I make myself a continuous recipient of the love of God. That my life isn't filled up doing things for him instead of connecting with him. We love him because he first loved us.