Weak People

There are emotional limitations, scars that we all carry from childhood, from school, natural temperament, personality characteristics that you have, how you handle stress, your basic predisposition toward life. I think we all carry talent limitations. The fact is, you’re good at some things and you are not good at some other things. Matthew 25 makes it real clear that there are one talent people there are five talent people and there are ten talent people. We’re limited. Nobody is good at everything. And then we have physical limitations. There are limits on how much energy we have. We have handicaps. Each of us go through illnesses, disabilities, weaknesses that we inherit or pick up along the way.

Throughout the Bible we see so many examples of the fact that God loves to turn our greatest weakness into our greatest strength.

Consider Moses. There are only two people in the Bible who are called meek: Jesus and Moses. When you think of meek you think of someone who has their temper under control, yet what was Moses’ greatest problem? His anger. He got angry and killed an Egyptian. He got angry and threw down the Ten Commandments so that they broke. He got angry and struck the rock when he should have spoken to it. It was anger that kept him out of the promised land, yet in the Bible he’s the only other person besides Jesus who is called meek.

Gideon. God said, “Gideon, you are a mighty man of valor,” and yet when you look closely at his life, Gideon’s problem was timidity. He was afraid. He had a fear of failure. Yet God said you are a courageous man of valor.

Jesus called Peter “a Rock.” Yet, Peter was anything but stable. He was Mr. Impulsive, Mr. Foot-In-Mouth, always speaking before he had thought things through. Yet Jesus said, “You’re going to be a rock.”

David. He was called, “a man after God’s own heart,” and yet his greatest defeat was in the area of moral impurity.

Abraham. Abraham was called the “father of faith,” and yet he had so much faith that twice he told his wife, "Tell them you’re my sister so they won’t kill me in order to take you.” That didn’t show too much faith!

The point I want to make is simply, God likes to turn our greatest weakness into our greatest strength. Hudson Taylor once said, “All God’s giants have been weak people.”

God loves to choose weak people to work through. Why? 1 Corinthians 1:27 (Good News) “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 the powerful men to shame.” Why does He like to use weak people? So He will receive the glory.

A few years ago there were a number of toys out called the Masters of the Universe – little cartoon characters with big thighs and bulging biceps, rippling muscles. The message that conveyed to the world was that the world belongs to the mighty.

But God is not impressed with might. Zachariah 4:6 “`It’s not by might not by power but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord.” I remember as a child I used to imagine that Samson was some muscle bound giant but later I learned that the Bible says when the Philistines looked at Samson, they couldn’t figure out his secret of strength. Evidently he must have looked very average and they didn’t know why he was strong. Judges 14:19 tells us that the secret of his strength was the Spirit of the Lord not the size of his muscles. There’s another example of weakness turned into strength.
All of us have weaknesses. We all carry the gospel in jars of clay. Lets be thankful for our weaknesses.