Christianity
has often been accused of being a religion for weaklings who create a God to
lean on because they’re not strong enough to stand on their own. Harold
Ballard, owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1970s, traded away players who
were Christians because he didn’t think they were tough enough, Ted Tuner, a
media mogul said, “Christianity is a crutch for the weak, a religion for
losers,” while the philosopher Friedrich Nietzche believed that God is a mental
construction to calm distress during times of suffering, that belief in God is
weakness.
Ballard,
Turner, and Nietzsche do have one thing right, Christianity is
for the weak. We see this over and over again, first in Israel, and later in the
church. We keep falling and failing and need to be rescued, saved, and renewed.
There’s this great fallacy that we’re strong enough to make it through life on
our own, that we have the strength within ourselves to make it through any and
all hard times if we only trust in ourselves and work hard. We even find this
belief in church when we claim that God doesn’t give us more than we can
handle, a misunderstanding of 1 Corinthians
10:13, “No temptation has
overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will
not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” Paul’s talking about
temptation here, not about suffering or hard times. God sometimes does give us
more than we can handle to teach us to rely on him, to build our character, or
to show his power through our weakness.
Paul gets this in 1 Corinthians 1:27–29, “But God chose the
foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the
world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the
despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so
that no one may boast before him.” We’re all weak, called to trust and
lean on God. Paul has his own weakness that he asks God to take away, but trusts
God will give him the strength he needs, whether God takes his thorn away or
not, 2 Corinthians 12:7–10, “Therefore,
in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a
messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take
it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my
power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly
about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for
Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in
persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Our strength comes from God through the presence of
the Holy Spirit.
Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher in the
1800s. He ached for a return of passion to the Christian
life. He turned to the Old Testament, where he found people who seemed more
real. They were saints and sinners, and there was nothing phony about them. God
really worked in their lives, and they had a passion for him. R.C. Sproul writes, “Another professor once asked
me, “How do you assess the strength of the church today?” I replied that it was
becoming increasingly clear to me that many people in the church have a vibrant
faith, believe the cardinal doctrines of Scripture, and so forth, but few of
them see the Christian faith as a mission, as a profound concern in their
lives. That was what Kierkegaard longed to see.”
God sees and hears us, and as we see in the judges Othniel, Gideon, and others, the Lord sends
his Spirit on his chosen to save his people. Othniel defeats the king of Aram and the
people have peace for 40 years. Gideon defeats the Midianites and Israel has
peace for 40 years. But Israel keeps drifting away from the Lord between
judges. The Old Testament shows us the Holy Spirit filling various people with
his power for special tasks to protect and lead his people out of oppression
and into freedom, or to call them back to the Lord. Isaiah 40:29–31 is a
beautiful statement of the Holy Spirit’s commitment to us, “He gives strength to the weary and
increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and
weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in
the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like
eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be
faint.”
One thing that fills me with hope is that God chooses people filled with doubt, people
who are weak and broken, and he fills them with his Spirit of power to do his
work. He simply calls us to respond in faith and he’ll work in us and through
us through his Spirit. Jesus knows our weakness and how difficult it is
for us to resist sin and temptation, how hard obedience can be, and instead of
condemning us, he tells his followers, “If you love
me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another
advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world
cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him,
for he lives with you and will be in you.” The Greek word that is
translated as “advocate,” or “comforter” in the Kiing James version, is parakletos. The translators of the King James Version translated parakletos as “comforter”
because at that time the English language was more closely connected to its
Latin roots. In Latin, the word comfortis,
comes from the prefix “com,” meaning
“with” and the root word fortis,
which means “strong,” so comfortis means “with strength.”
Jesus is promises them the Holy Spirit to strengthen them. As R.C Sproul writes, “The
empowerment to live the life that Christ has called us to live comes to us by
the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin, but the Spirit
also fills us with its strength to resist sin, obey Jesus, and carry on Jesus’
work. Paul
sees the importance of the Spirit’s power in us to shape us in the image of
Jesus in Ephesians 3:16–17, “I pray
that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his
Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through
faith.” When we read the book of Acts, we see how the Holy Spirit fills
people like the apostles with power to convict people of their sin and lead
them to Jesus, and the strength to carry on through hard times and stay on
mission to share the good news of Jesus. The Holy Spirit continues to fill us
today with the strength needed to follow Jesus and continue his work.
David
Livingstone, a Scottish missionary, travelled to Africa in the mid-19th
century in order to spread Christianity and end the slave trade. Livingstone’s
explorations opened up Africa to the world, challenging the slave trade and creating
a foundation for missionaries to come. Despite facing huge challenges, his
faith and determination stayed strong, inspired by a vision of Africa’s conversion
to Jesus. Livingstone didn’t see many people accept Jesus in his lifetime, his
work deeply impacted Africa’s Christian landscape. His work led to many later
missions, and his position against slavery created international support. Today
Africa is the center of Christianity due to the power of the Holy Spirit. There
are many stories of how the Holy Spirit gave believers the strength to go into
impossible situations for Jesus, people like Jim Elliot, and later his wife
Elizabeth Elliot after he was killed on the mission field. Johanna Veenstra, a
CRC missionary who dedicated her life to Nigeria even though the CRC chose the
China mission field over Africa. She opened up a mission field there that still
bears great fruit today.
A
person I’ve been talking to lately told me, “If God really exists, why
doesn’t he just save everyone; why would an all-powerful God allow people the
freedom to reject him?” In a world leaning more to authoritarianism, the
idea of an all-powerful God who allows rejection and disobedience is hard to
understand. Power is their god and weakness has no place in their thinking and
the idea that God gives his Spirit to weak and broken people to bring new life
and hope blows their minds. We’re simply called to trust Jesus’ call to make
disciples and share the good news and the power of the Holy Spirit will do the
transformation part. I pray this helps to take away the fear of sharing your
faith and inviting others to join here at Bethel because the Spirit takes the
responsibility of transforming away from us.
The Spirit’s power and strength is available to us when we share the good news that brings freedom from
slavery to sin, when disciple-making is the core of our church identity, and
our passion grows to introduce the people in our lives to Jesus. Our role is to
share who God is in our lives, to introduce them to the Bible; the Holy Spirit will
fill us with the strength needed to resist temptation and share the good news
wherever God places us, and the Spirit will transform their hearts for Jesus.
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