[English Sermon(영어설교) Your Weakness Should Drive You to God by Paul Washer

Your Weakness Should Drive You to God by Paul Washer

Description: Text Transcript:

I am so tired of hearing Christians telling me: “Brother Paul, I am just so weak.” Brother Paul you started your sermon saying you are weak. So why can’t we say it?

Well I want you to understand the phrase, and the context of it. First of all your not weak and I can prove it to you. In the last weak, w e a k. How much time did you spend grasping striving to know God and His word and in prayer that apart from God and His work on your behalf, uh, you were not going to be able to make it. Oh see its really easy to say: “You are so weak.” Your problem is not that you are weak. Your problem is that you think you are strong and I can prove it by just looking at your devotional life.

You see, our problem is not that we are too weak, our problem is that we do not recognize our weakness. You see that? That’s why the greatest, the men and women who have been most used of God in Christian history seem to have only one thing in common. A recognition of their weakness.

Now, here is what I want to show you and it is so, so important. Weakness is not a hinderance to power, weakness is the catalyst to spiritual power. The problem is wrong response. So first of all you need to recognize something, everybody is weak. Everything demanded to you in the New Testament is absolutely impossible for the natural man. There you go, so everyone is on the same level me, you, Spurgeon, John Piper, all, everyone is weak that is it.

You can’t use weakness as an excuse anymore. Everybody is just as weak. No-one can do this stuff, no-one. So there you go, we are weak. The question is what do we do? Now. Many people just mouth weakness, because it is the Christian thing to do, I am weak. Other people find it very convenient to use that phraseology because its an excuse for their sin, well I am weak, everybody is weak.

But the right mindset here is in recognizing your weakness. It drives you to God. Immediately to God. Believing in faith He is the fountain He claims to be. He is the source and the helper that He claims to be. He is One of unlimited resources. That He does not greedily hand out to children but He lavishes upon them.

So you see, your problem is that you are really not recognizing you are weak. Or you recognize you are weak but you just stay there in your weakness. The time is your weakness ought to drive you to God every time. Here is the problem, let’s enter in with your heart condemning you and satan helping your heart condemn you.

See I have found so many people. I saw someone last night, I dealt a longtime with them. Precious little girl. She recognized her weakness. She recognized her frailty, she recognized her sin. she recognized in her life some things she could not overcome right now. But here was her problem. She would see her sin and because of the work of the devil, and sometimes our heart condemning us, she would put herself in the penalty box every time she sinned. Well you can’t go to God right now, you can’t just keep running back to Him. You sinned yesterday and you repented and asked for forgiveness. Now you have done the same exact thing today. You run back to Him your just a hypocrite. You don’t appreciate God. You don’t have a high view of God. What do you think, God just hands out pardon to everyone?

Isn’t that what we do and isn’t that we think. Sin, A sin that we have already sinned, already of repented of, and because of it we think we need to put ourselves in a penalty box for awhile at least. A couple of days. And try and work our way back into favour before we come to God. Because we think actually. You mean if I go back every time I do this, just immediately, not only going back and asking for forgiveness but expecting forgiveness isn’t that hypocrisy? Isn’t that a low view of God? Isn’t that treating God as a forgiveness machine? No, it’s being Biblical! It’s what poverty of spirit is supposed to do to us.

Now, I am not preaching this hopefully to unconverted church people who are going to say: “Oh wow if God is that good I will sin all the time and just go back and ask for forgiveness.” Hopefully I am not talking to people like that. Hopefully I am talking to genuine Christians who really want to be something they are not yet. But when they find themselves frail, when they find themselves weak, and they find themselves sinning the same sin. They kinda huddle over here and wait. Maybe read their bibles a few times and pray some more and show God that they are sincere before they run over there and actually try and get some forgiveness. No!

One of the great joys of my life is when I discovered that the moment I sin the sin I always sin my first response ought to be to latch a hold of Christ. And not beggarly and not: “Oh here I am You ought to strike me down.” No! I latch a hold of Christ saying: “I believe Your promises!”

I am in a different realm. I am free. I am a saint. I have been moved out of Adam and condemnation and law. All of it was paid for on that tree. When He died He knew all of it! He forgave all of it! I’m free! It’s absolutely spectacular.