Bobby Bosler: Young people, if you could please take your Bible and turn with me here this morning to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. And if you could also then turn with me to Numbers.

Numbers. The book of Numbers. and we’re also going to be looking at chapter 13.

So go to 2 Corinthians 12 first, and then find Numbers chapter 12 and put your finger in there. We’ll be going to two different passages here this morning. Am I on here?

Am I on consistently? All right, very good. Praise the Lord.

Okay, well this morning I’ve got a burden on my heart here that I trust will be a blessing to you, and I’ve been just praying and seeking the Lord’s face. I don’t know if you understand this, but we’ve been trying to take you on a progression here this week.

Our desire has been really at the beginning of the week to just help you understand your need, help you understand if we could say the problem, and to be able to help you come to decisions of death, kind of like we talked about yesterday morning.

Decisions where you become willing to die to your sins, where you become willing to die to those things that you hold dear to you, those things that you treasure, your sons, and ultimately to bring you to absolute death to yourself so that you’re willing to do whatever God wants you to do.

I was thrilled at the progression and how God led us yesterday, even just the encouragement of talking about the fact that we’re in a covenant relationship with God, and when we two-time it on God, we are committing adultery against our relationship with Jesus Christ. And how yesterday we heard that even as we’re probably feeling pretty bad about the things that we’ve done, Brother Smith came in and said, hey, listen, just a little reminder on the way in this journey.

Even if you’ve done some horrible things and made some unbelievably bad choices in your life, just recognize God still wants to use you. Can God use you? God can.

Okay, let’s try that again. God can is the right response. Can God use you?

God can. Absolutely he can. And don’t you ever forget that.

In the afternoon session, we heard what is moral purity. It’s part of your sanctification. It’s a part of your growth, as the passage talks about there in 1 Thessalonians 4.

This is the will of God. And it’s interesting, even in that passage, even those group of people that Paul was writing to, these were people that if they would have known what the generation was all about, they would have said, I’m a part of the generation. I, in fact, these people, the Thessalonians, their testimony was echoing all throughout the region.

These were people that were making a huge difference in the kingdom of God. And even those people, Paul had to say, hey, listen, we need to talk to you about your moral purity. And then last night, that message on seeking God.

You know, it’s so easy to get distracted with the things of life and the many distractions that can keep us from really that one needful thing, seeking the very face and presence of God in many of you last night. You responded in that invitation. You took God up on his offer to seek God continually, to seek his face.

And I think some of you found him last night, didn’t you? I think some of you found him. I see smiles on some faces, and I tell you what, it’s a thrilling thing.

And you know, as we begin to seek God, as we begin to recognize that he has a plan for our lives as we die to our own will, and begin to be awakened in our spirit to the voice of God to reveal to us his will, he begins to show us what he wants us to do. And as he begins to show us what he wants us to do, sometimes that’s really scary. Have you ever noticed that?

Sometimes that’s incredibly scary. And when God begins to show you what he wants you to do and how he wants to use you, there are some times that we can actually regress. We can go backwards in our progression of our walk with God because we think that what he’s calling us to do is too hard.

It’s too difficult. It’s impossible. Sometimes we regress.

We take two steps backwards because we think, oh boy, that’s going to be uncomfortable. Sometimes we take two steps backwards when we see what God wants us to do because we feel incapable. Sometimes we take two steps back when God begins to show us what he wants us to do, that he wants us to seek his face and spread the presence of Jesus Christ throughout this planet for his sake.

And sometimes we take a step back. But I want you to know it is that very position of weakness. It is that very position when you realize, and I’m going to give a little quotation mark of exactly what you’re feeling in your heart.

Here it is. Here’s what you feel in your heart. when God shows you what he wants you to do.

Instead of regressing and stepping back, God actually wants us to embrace that weakness. God actually wants us to rejoice in that weakness. God wants us to take pleasure in that weakness because it’s in that weakness that we are made strong.

This is what I’m going to be talking about here today. Many times people think that their weakness disqualifies them from impacting the world. But I want you to know it is your weakness that actually qualifies you.

What I want to do here, I’m going to be speaking to you here this morning about a message I’ve entitled, The Strength of Weakness. The Strength of Weakness. Let’s open with a word of prayer.

Dear Jesus, I am weak this morning, just as weak as I was yesterday. And I want to thank you so much that when I’m weak, then am I strong. And I just pray, God, that here this morning you would enable me by your strength and power by the strength of Jesus Christ who lives in me.

Won’t you please enable me to communicate the passages that you’ve laid in my heart in a way that’s helpful, in a way that’s effective, in a way that will help unlock truth in the hearts of these young people here in this room. God, I know every young person here in this room, you want to use them, not in spite of their weakness, but because of their weakness to manifest your strength and to turn the world upside down for Jesus Christ.

I pray that you’d lead me specifically to the exact nuances and applications that you want presented here in this time. And I pray, Lord, you would set us up to learn what it means to live 0100. In Jesus’ name, amen.

In the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, we find the Apostle Paul writing to a group of people who were, I would say, this group of people, they were a mixed bag. You had here in this church, you had some people that absolutely loved Paul, their preacher, and yet you also had a group of people there in that church that absolutely hated the Apostle Paul. You see, Paul had planted the church there in Corinth in his second missionary journey.

God gave him the Macedonian vision, and he went over from present-day Turkey, Asia Minor, across to the Grecian Peninsula. First, he ministered at the top of that peninsula in the region called Macedonia, and then he moved down the peninsula through Athens into the city of Corinth. He lifted up his voice.

He preached the gospel. And even though the battle was hot and heavy, God was working in his heart. God showed up to him in the middle of the night and said, do not be afraid and do not hold back.

For I am with thee and no man shall set on thee to harm thee for I have much people in this city. You see, God had a plan for that city there in Corinth. The apostle Paul obeyed the heavenly vision that God had given unto him.

He obeyed the voice of the spirit of God and he began to preach the gospel. And even though things got difficult, he continued to preach the gospel. And what happened is after a year and a half there in that city, he had a brand new church, a baby group of Christians who were serving God and reaching their peninsula for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Listen, church planting is on the heart of God. It’s on the heart of the Lord of the harvest. And God led him there that day to plant that church.

Well, Paul, after he had felt like these people were settled, He felt like they were heading in the right direction. He continued on in his missionary journeys, and eventually, not too long after that, he began to hear a report that there was some garbage going on in the church at Corinth. There were some people who were doing some absolutely wicked things in the moral arena, and the church wasn’t lifting a finger to deal with any of it, and that and a number of different reasons.

And on top of that, there was carnality in the church. People were fighting with each other. Fleshliness in the church.

There was all kinds of issues, even some doctrinal error happening there in that church. And Paul sat down, led by the Holy Spirit, to write what we know of as the first letter to the Corinthians. In that letter, he addressed the problems that were going on in the church.

He told them, you need to deal with these issues, and I have whole messages that I could preach. He wanted them to keep their focus right. He wanted them to stay on task in reaching the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

However, after he sent that letter, two things happened. There was a whole group of people in the church that said, you know what, Paul, you’re right. We haven’t been lifting a finger to do what we were supposed to do.

You know what, Paul, you’re right. We cannot tolerate this moral impurity in our midst. We are going to deal with it.

We are going to either get right or make these people get right. We want to be a church that can reach the world with the gospel, and this sin is killing us. That was one group of people, and that group of people was revived.

I believe it was that group of people that understood what it meant to seek the face of God, and they sought the face of God. They dealt with the issues God was telling them to deal with corporately as a church. But as you begin to investigate, there was another group of people in that church that did not deal with the issue.

This group of individuals you would call scoffers, scorners. These were people who, when the apostle, the man of God, would stand up and preach the message of God to the people of God, these people would laugh. They would talk to the people next to them.

They would basically take it lightly. They would say, hey, listen, it’s a comedy. I like that dummy earlier.

Look, there’s the dummy, the apostle Paul, just going about. There he goes again, to quote a former president, right? And this group of people in the church, they were the scorners and the scoffers, just like some of you here in this room.

Just like some of you here in this room. In fact, if I could say, I didn’t think about this before I started preaching this, but this moment in time in the church at Corinth is kind of a lot like this moment in time here at the Thee Generation Youth Summit. Because there are some of you who have obeyed the voice of God.

There are some of you here in this room who have begun to discern the voice of God. You’ve sought the face of God. You’ve dealt with the things that God has told you to deal with.

And there are some of you here in this room who have not. And as we go through this second book of Corinthians, Paul is absolutely thrilled with what God is doing in those people that have gotten right. In fact, he dedicates chapters of this book to say, listen, I wasn’t sure how you were going to respond to that letter, but when I finally got word from Titus that you had done right, I’m telling you, I was excited.

I was thrilled. I was overjoyed. Couldn’t believe it.

But when you get around to chapter 10, it’s almost like there’s an entire shift in what he’s talking about. In fact, it’s such an abrupt shift in his tone that people who don’t really believe the Bible, they say it was a totally different letter. I don’t believe that.

I believe it was all one letter. But the shift of tone in chapter 10 is because he is shifting from talking to those who have made a significant decision for God, who were doing right, who were seeking the face of God continually. He was shifting from them to the scoffers.

And the scoffers had a number of talking points that they were leveling against the apostle Paul. They were saying things like, Ah, we don’t like Paul, you know. He doesn’t really come because he’s afraid of us.

He hides behind a pen. And Paul makes it very clear, Hey, listen, I’m willing to come to you, and I’m willing to deal with you people. And you’ll see that I’m not just strong when I’m writing a letter to you.

I can be just as strong, if not more, in person. Don’t test me, is essentially what he’s saying. But one of the things that this group of people mocked and scoffed at Paul about is because, well, they thought that he was a man who was constantly and unavoidably weak.

They didn’t like Paul because they felt like everywhere Paul went, things went bad for him. Everywhere Paul went, people were trashing him. They felt like everywhere this man Paul went, he was either getting shipwrecked or thrown in jail or getting persecuted, beat up, stoned.

And they thought, man, if this guy was really a man of God, you would think God would take better care of him. And the Apostle Paul, as he’s going throughout this progression to the hard-hearted people in Corinth, he tells them essentially, hey, listen, listen, you people there, you say, hey, look at me, I’ve got it all together. Hey, look at me.

I’ve got it all figured out. I’ve got my future mapped out. I’ve got a following.

I’ve got a group of people that think that I’m cool. That’s what you say. And he says, listen, you are boasting.

You compare yourselves among yourselves and you think you’re so great. You think you’re so amazing. You think you’re so much stronger and wiser and you’ve got it all figured out.

He says, I’m telling you what, you are a fool. You’re a fool. He said, and you know what?

He said, listen, I got a group of people there that I treasure. I got a group of people there that I that are the apple of my eye. This group of people here I love.

I have sacrificed for. I want to see them go all the way with God. I want to see these people turn the world upside down for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And if it takes me descending to be a little bit of a fool to prove that I’m a man of God, so that’ll shut you up and make you recognize that God is my God, that I’m sent from him and have authority from him, then let me indulge for just a little bit. In chapter 11, he begins to go through and lay out point by point his boast. Now, again, I’m not going to take you through all of these things.

I’m really just trying to lead us to our passage here today. But as you look at what he’s going to be boasting about, and I’d encourage you to study it out sometime in chapter 11, he doesn’t boast by saying, look at how many people I’ve seen saved. He doesn’t boast at saying, look at how many people follow me on my Twitter feed.

He doesn’t boast and say, look at the size of the church that I’ve built. He doesn’t boast and say, hey, listen, look at this, that, or the other thing. He boasts in his weakness.

He boasts in the fact that the very fact that he’s weak and the fact that God shows up in his weakness is really what qualifies him for being a man of God who’s turning the world upside down. Again, I don’t have time to fully develop all of it. But as you go throughout that and into chapter 12, in fact, if you look at the very first verse here, just having that understanding here.

He says in chapter 12, verse 1, It is not expedient for me, doubtless, to glory or to boast. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. And he says, hey, let me tell you one amazing experience that I had with God.

He says, I knew a man in Christ above 14 years ago. Whether in the body, I cannot tell. Whether out of the body, I can’t tell.

God knoweth. Such a one caught up to the third heaven, and I knew such a man. Whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell.

God knoweth. How that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words, which is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such in one will I glory or boast, yet of myself I will not glory or boast.

But here’s what I will boast in, but in mine infirmities. For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool. For I will say the truth, but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me.

Do you see the heart of humility of the Apostle Paul. He’s saying, listen, I’m telling you what I’m going to boast in. I’m going to boast in the fact that I am weak.

He says in verse 7, and lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations. There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure for this thing. I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me.

He said, listen, I want you to understand something. I’ve seen God do some pretty amazing things in my life. I’ve seen God show up in my ministry.

Later on, he’s going to say essentially in chapter 13, the very fact that you’re saved is proof that God has showed up in my ministry, but I won’t spend time on that verse here at this time. But here he’s saying essentially, listen, I want you to know that God is using me. And in order for God to continue to use me, here is what God is doing.

God is sending a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan. God is sending weakness into my life. God, on a regular basis, on a constant basis, He makes me weak.

He makes me weaker than I think I ought to be. He makes things go wrong where I don’t think they ought to go wrong. He takes me down a path of hardship, of tribulation, where things go wrong every time I turn around.

That’s because God’s trying to prevent me from exalting myself above due measure. With all of that being said, we get to verse 9. And this is really the verse that I want to focus on here this morning.

Verse 9, and he said unto me. So here, Paul just said, he asked God three times, please God, take this weakness away from me. Please, God, I don’t like being weak.

Please, God, I don’t like that this is happening to me. Please, God, I don’t like this thorn in the flesh. Please take it away.

I don’t want it. I could serve you so much more effectively if it wasn’t for this thorn in the flesh. God, you could use me.

Just think of how you could use me if you could take this problem, this thing, this issue, whatever it is away, this weakness that I have. Oh, God, would you please cause things to stop happening? Please, I’m tired of ships sinking.

God, I’m tired of getting beaten up by people as I go into these cities. God, I’m tired of all of the Jews every time I go into a city, rioting and hating my guts and running me out. God, I’m tired of it.

Please take it away. So I’m thinking it was a physical issue. Could have been, may not have been.

Could have been, God, if I could see better, then you could really use me. God, if I could just have more stamina or endurance perhaps, then maybe you could really use me. God, if you would just take this perceived limitation away from me, then maybe you could use me.

Have you ever felt like that? But God’s answer to him in verse 9, And he, God said unto me in response to his request to take those limitations away, my grace is sufficient for thee. For my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Paul’s response to the statement of God is this, Most gladly, therefore, will I rather or instead glory or boast, Rejoice in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, verse 10, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong.

I am become a fool for glorying. And I think he’s saying that sarcastically. He said, there, you’ve gone and done it.

you’ve made me a fool just like you in boasting. I become a fool for glorying. Ye have compelled me, brothers.

You’ve forced my hand to go and boast, for I ought not to have been commended of you, and in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing. Here Paul had a very keen awareness that he was nothing, And God could do anything through somebody who was a nothing. I want to repeat my main point that I want to give across to you here today.

Many times people think their weakness disqualifies them from impacting the world. But young people, I want you to get this. But it is your weakness that actually qualifies you for turning the world upside down for Jesus Christ.

Yeah, I remember back in Bible college, I came here to Baptist College of Ministry in 2003. and I came because God told me to come. By the way, can I say this?

We don’t really focus on this here other than making you all wear Baptist College of Ministry shirts. But you know, God does have a will for you and where you’re supposed to go to college. I was wrestling over a number of options.

I had a lot of great reasons for why I could go to another place. But God, who knows what I need and who knew what would be best for me, God told me that I was supposed to come here. I worked throughout the summer before I came here.

I had surrendered to God the previous school year to come to Baptist College of Ministry and train for the ministry. And that summer I worked very hard. And I remember I accumulated some money and I came in to Baptist College of Ministry the fall of 2003 as a freshman with a bottle of Mountain Dew under my arm.

Whoops. I was very much a caffeine junkie back in those days. And I came here and I had tons of issues.

I shared some of my background. I wanted to serve God, but I had tons of issues. And I came here, and I came here, I remember I sat in the interview, and a man, Helmut Steckman, in that interview, he said to me across the table, how do you plan on paying for your school bill?

And I remember I said to him, as a freshman who didn’t know anything, who wasn’t anything, I said, well, I’ve got $2,000 in the bank. Just so you know, that is not enough to cover a whole semester of Baptist College of Ministry.

But I had two grand in the bank, and I said, sir, I’ve got $2,000 in the bank, and I’m willing to work, but ultimately, if God called me to come here, God’s going to have to pay for it, and evidently, that was a good enough answer for them, because they let me come, which was a thrill, was rejoice, I rejoiced in that, and I came, and I remember that $2,000 didn’t take long to go away, and I remember it was after I think I’d paid,

like, my first or second bill, I was realizing, I don’t have anything left, uh-oh, and I remember a young man who was a year ahead of me, Nathan Childs, who’s now on deputation to head to South Africa.

Remember Nathan Childs, he challenged me as a fellow student. He said, well, Bobby, here’s what you need to do. He said, what you need to do is you need to find a closet somewhere.

You need to get on your face and you need to get that money from God. And I remember I was out of money. I had enough, not for the entire bill, but I had enough for part of it.

And I remember I took him up on that offer and I sought the face of God and I got on my face and I said, God, I can’t, I can’t pay for this. I’m working, but cleaning crew does not pay enough to make up the deficit that I need right now. And I told the Lord, I said, God, you called me here.

You’re going to have to pay for it. Please, God, I need your provision. And you know what?

It was not, but days later, I had received a note from the finance office that someone had anonymously donated enough to finish out that one payment on my school bill. I remember rejoicing. Praise God.

You know, and I kind of thought that’s how it was going to be every month. You know what I’m saying? Every single month.

Oh, don’t have enough for this bill. Just get in my closet and pray. And I get in my closet and pray.

And you know what? There were months when it didn’t happen. Some of you know what I’m talking about, BCM students.

And I remember I started getting behind. And I was doing everything I could. And I kept getting behind and I kept getting more behind and I’d go home and I worked as an ice cream truck driver during my summer after my freshman year.

I know, the creepy ice cream truck driver. But I was a creepy ice cream truck driver who gave out tracks. That’s what I was.

And I worked and that helped with some of it, but again, I never felt like I could get ahead. And I’ll be honest with you, there was a period of time in my college education, I despised the fact that I didn’t have enough. I despised the fact that I didn’t have what it took to pay for my school bill.

I was sick and tired of the fact that I always came up short. I was sick and tired of the fact that I was behind. And I remember there were so many times in my college education I would get on my face and I would say, God, you own the cattle on a thousand hills.

Just kill a few, please. Just kill them. Butcher them.

Sell them. Give me the money. I’m sick of this.

I’m telling you, you can handle that kind of tension for a little bit of time, right? But when it goes on and on for years, it sometimes just gets tiresome. And I was sick of it, and I was tired of it.

And there were so many times I would get alone. I remember at one point in 2006, the summer of 2006, I was traveling on an ensemble representing Baptist College of Ministry. The way we did it was we’d go out for some meetings, and we’d come back, and I worked with a fella here in the church, and we cut down trees, worked with Nick Stahl.

and I remember I had nothing. I had nothing. I made some commitments to give to God and I’d given some of those commitments to the Lord first and there were even times where I had to pray in the money to give those commitments to God and it was during some of those times I remember praying for grape jelly so I could have peanut butter and jelly sandwich while I was on the job.

I remember praying for that. I remember God specifically provided for that but I remember throughout that summer I remember there was one time enough money to pay off the money I was supposed to have to come back that school year. I’m thinking, this is bad.

The kid on the ensemble can’t come back that fall. This is terrible. And I remember I was really seeking the face of God.

In fact, I remember one time in a service, I remember we were singing in that service, I must tell Jesus all of my trials. I must tell Jesus. I remember just weeping through that song.

Jesus was so close to me. And I remember I had a prayer time. It’s what’s now the student center where Caleb Forrester lives over there.

And I’d had a time of prayer up on the top. There was a dormitory at that time. And I was on my face and I remember up in the little living room, just up the stairs there, on my face next to a couch.

I remember God told me in that prayer time, I promise to you that if you would give to me, I would supply all of your needs in Christ Jesus. And I remember God brought me to a confidence there that day that if the money wasn’t in my school bills account, evidently it wasn’t a need yet. Because as soon as it became a need, it would be there.

And I remember I went to Pastor Zemple after the next service and I caught him up front. I still remember talking to him there and I said, Pastor Zemple, I just want you to know I met with God. God told me that if the money isn’t there, if I have a deficit, that’s because evidently it hasn’t become a need yet.

I don’t know what Pastor Zemple thought about that when I told him that. I’m sure he was thinking, well, it is a need and you need to meet your obligations. But again, God was just working in my heart and God was stirring faith.

And I’ll be honest with you, I was absolutely sick. I was sick of not having what it took. Get around to my senior year.

Evidently, this was before they really tightened the grip on the rules about how much money you have to have in order to come back. But they were so gracious, and they let me come back on a number of occasions when I probably shouldn’t have. And I came back for my senior year, and my second senior year, because I traveled with Dr.

Jim, and that bumped me back a year. I called myself a super senior. I don’t know whether I was that super or not.

January of my final year in college, I had asked Abigail Joy Wickham to be my wife. And through tears, she said yes. And we were planning on getting married.

And all around that general time frame, I had started working for Minute Men Ministries as someone who designed their websites and graphics and their brochures and their t-shirts. And there was a little bit of an income stream from that. Trust me, not a lot.

but it was enough. And I was just grateful to have a way to work and to kind of use the talents that God had given me to further the cause of Jesus Christ. And it was around that time, I remember that things finally started looking up.

It started looking like I was going to be able to pay for everything. I was going to be able to graduate debt-free. They had around that time locked down on the rules.

You have to have your entire school bill paid off to walk at graduation and get your diploma. I think I was the first year they actually did that, and I’m thinking, thanks a lot. Couldn’t you have waited another year?

Well, it was looking up, and I thought, okay, this is good. You know, if I work so many hours and so on, I should hopefully be able to get through there, and this was actually before I asked my wife to marry me. That would be a part of the story here, and I remember I was interning here, and my spot was the guest services, that little octagonal wooden thing in the lobby.

That was kind of where I had planted myself. I had a few classes here and there, but by and large, it was my undergraduate internship. And I had my computer there in the lobby sitting in that octagonal thing.

And part of my responsibility for the internship was I had to go and I had to sit with each staff member and just ask them some questions. And I remember there that day, I went to talk to John Flanders, who was here earlier. He was the principal of the academy at the time.

And I sat down with him and I remember we talked through some things and I went back to that octagonal wooden guest services and remember my computer wasn’t there and I thought huh interesting maybe I brought it to the meeting so I went to his office and it wasn’t there and if you know me I lose things frequently right I said that last night still can’t find my bible I’m using my wife’s right now if you see it let me know and I remember I

didn’t know where my computer was and at first I thought it’s got to be around here somewhere, but after a little while of looking for it, by the way, if you stole my Bible, please give it back to me.

I started wondering. I think we had the very beginnings of our camera security systems there at that time, and we watched some footage, and we saw a man who’d come in from the doors on that corner, walked down around the hallway into the lobby, walked right past, reached down, grabbed the computer, and walked right out the door. Remember, I called up Dr.

Jim and I told him, and the question that he asked me is, he said, did you have all of your Minutemen files backed up? Remember asking me that, Dr. Jim?

He doesn’t remember. I remember because I didn’t. I had a bunch of projects I was working on, time-sensitive things.

I had not backed them up. I’ve learned my lesson since then, but that brought me back to weakness again. And honestly, I was sick of it.

I was so discouraged. So discouraged. I remember going back to where I was staying, and I remember getting on my face and just like, God, why?

Why? Let’s finally get into the place where I could do something and get this done to where I could, you know, be effective and pay off my school bill so I can go out and serve you in evangelism like you’ve called me to. What is this?

What’s going on? God, why, why, why? I don’t like this.

I don’t want this. Stop this.

well I called up my parents and said something along the lines of what I just said and I remember I hung up and and I just got down in my face and I sought the face of God and I said God I don’t know what you’re doing I don’t get it I don’t get it my phone buzzed again flipped it open back in the day when you flipped open phones I flipped it open and I saw it was my parents again.

I picked up the phone and they said, hey, we know you’re really discouraged. And when we got off the phone, we talked about whether we were going to tell you what we’re going to tell you now. Just want to make sure, are you sitting down?

Yeah, why? They said, you remember how last Christmas your grandfather passed away? Yeah.

You know, you came out, you led him to Christ on his deathbed. Yeah, of course I remember that. How could I forget?

They said, well, there’s something you don’t know about him. He had left some money for every one of his grandchildren. I said, really?

How much? Well, I’ll just tell you it was enough. It was $11,000.

Not only did that finish out my school bill, not only did that get me a brand-new computer, not only did that allow me to put some money towards another student’s, college bill. Not only did that allow me to buy some of the chairs that you’re sitting on right now, we had a big chair drive there at that time, but God allowed me to buy a big honking engagement ring for my wife. That was the best part.

But you know, God was teaching me something that he continues to teach me. God loves it when we’re weak. We get this, and we should too.

You see, our natural reaction is to say, God, just take this physical problem away from me, and then I can serve you. Our natural reaction is to say, this is limiting me from doing all that I’m supposed to do. Our natural reaction is to despise the weakness, to run from the weakness, to whine about the weakness.

But God wants our response to be to rejoice in the weakness. A couple points here real briefly. don’t escape your weakness.

Embrace your weakness. Paul, in this passage, he tried to run from it. He tried to have it to get away from him, but God was trying to teach him to embrace it.

Second point, don’t focus on what you can’t do. Focus on what God can do. Thirdly, don’t view weakness as the end.

View it as the beginning. See, God’s trying to get us to a point where we know I can’t do this, but he can. Now, that being said, I asked you to turn over with me the book of Numbers in chapter 13.

And as you’re turning again, again, you probably had your finger in there, then took it out. God delights in bringing us to a moment of weakness so that he can show himself strong. And in Numbers chapter 13, we find God had revealed his will to a group of people, the nation of Israel.

and God had told them, listen, I want you to go into the land and I’ve got something I want you to do. I want you to conquer these people. I want you to overcome the land of Canaan.

And I think you all are probably aware that the land of Canaan is a picture of victory in the Christian life. It’s a picture not of the other side and going to heaven. There are no more battles left in heaven, but it’s a picture of us crossing from the land of defeat and unbelief into the land of victory.

Well, they were currently on the other side of the river and they were looking across the river. And again, I don’t have time to read all of this, but essentially the beginning, God said to him, send men over there to search out the land of Canaan, basically to scout the whole thing out and come back and give you a report. And he gives a list of all of the different people that went over.

And Moses sent them, verse 17, to spy out the land of Canaan and said unto them, get you up this way southward, go up into the mountain and see the land, what it is, and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many, and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad, in what cities they be, that they dwell in, whether in tents or in strongholds, in what the land is, whether it be fat

or lean, whether they be wood therein or not, and be of good courage and bring the fruit of the land.

Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes. So they went up and searched the land from the wilderness of Zin unto Rehob, as men come to Hamath. And they ascended by the south and came unto Hebron.

And he gives a list of the different places, and they brought back pomegranates, figs, clusters of grapes. I’ve always imagined they’re as big as your head, probably because of a book that I saw with pictures in it when I was a kid.

Verse 25, And they returned from searching of the land after forty days, and they went and came to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and to the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh, and brought back word unto them and unto all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land, and told them, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey. And this, I imagine, this, right?

This is the fruit of it. Now let me stop right there. They said, listen, we’ve heard what God has called us to do.

We went over ourselves and we took a look. We did a little bit of a scouting trip just to kind of see how it was going to go. We stepped into the land for ourselves.

We took a step. We looked around and we thought, it’s pretty good over here. There’s a lot of blessings over here.

Grapes as big as your head. And I want you to know, young people, when you step into the land of victory, there’s some pretty amazing things that you can see there. Things that’ll nourish not your body, but your soul.

There are battles, yes, but there is an amazing sweetness, drinking from the milk of God. But I think most of you know that this story is not so much about the fact that, yeah, we brought back a grape as big as your head. In verse 28, they gave the flip side to their assessment.

Nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled and very great. And moreover, we saw the children of Anak there. Now, whenever they would say the children of Anak, everybody would shudder, because they were giants.

The Amalekites, it says, dwell in the land of the south and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites. Dwell in the mountains and the Canaanites. Dwell by the sea and the coasts of Jordan.

He says, listen, yes, it’s true that there’s amazing blessings in that land. But let me tell you what, there are some unbelievable enemies in that land too. It’s hard in that land.

Evidently, because of the list of different people that he had said, the people that were listening to their report, they shuddered. The people that were listening to the report, they got scared. I imagine there were mothers who began to cry because they thought that their sons were going to go into this difficult situation.

I imagine there were children who began to weep and wail. I imagine that there were men who instantly had the bottom drop out in their stomach. And as they heard the report, they thought, gulp.

I don’t know that that’s what I signed on for. The reason why I say that they responded like that is because of verse 30. And Caleb stilled the people before Moses and said, so here’s the man that says, OK, sure.

Listen. Hey, listen, calm down. I know it’s bad.

I know when you go in there, there are going to be challenges. I know it’s not good. But he says, let us go up at once and possess it.

for we are well able to overcome it. And you think, did they see the same circumstances? Did they both see the same enemies?

Did they both see the same lands? You see, the difference between the perspective of the ten spies who gave an evil report and the two that gave a good report was one simple thing. They both had seen their weakness.

They both understood that they were incapable of doing what God was calling them to do. They both understood it, but here’s the thing. One group didn’t factor in God, and the other group did.

It says in verse 31, But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land through which we’ve gone to search it land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof. And all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature.

And there we saw giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants. And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers. And so we were in their sight.

Let me say this, just to tie these two passages together. God wants to bring you to a sense of your weakness. God wants you to understand that you can’t do it.

But get this, weakness without factoring in God always leads to rebellion. Listen, when you look at something God’s calling you to do and you say you can’t, you’re doing exactly what Israelites did and God called that an evil report. You see, when we forget to factor in God, we become what I call unbelieving rebel bean counters.

You say, what? Here’s what you do. You take a look at the circumstance and you say, well, according to my calculations, when you calculate my skill set and my available money in my bank account, and when you calculate in my persuasive ability or lack thereof, and when you take a look at all of the negatives and the cons, and when you take everything and calculate it together, I end up in a deficit of approximately 25.3, so it cannot be done.

well that might sound funny God calls that rebellion when you say you can’t because of your perceived limitation that leads you to disobey the voice of God see they knew what God wanted to do what God wanted but they refused to believe God to do it I believe they wanted comfort and security more than they wanted victory they magnified the obstacles to be bigger than God. And I believe they did not want the pressure of the battle or the prospects of failure.

See, ultimately, there are two responses to your weakness. You can look at your weakness and say, it cannot be done. And you say, I will not.

Or you can look at the circumstances and like Paul, you can get excited. Like Caleb, you can actually get excited because you look at this and you think, It’s going to be an exciting ride. God’s going to do some pretty amazing things.

God’s going to do miracles. You see, I believe that what God is trying to get all of us to do is to understand our weakness, to embrace our weakness, and to develop the perspective that when we are weak, then and only then can we become strong supernaturally. and God wants us to take a look at our weakness and God wants us to get excited because when I’m weak, then I’m strong.

See, your weakness is the very condition in which God’s power shows up. Don’t hide it. Don’t run from it, but instead glory in it.

One story and I’ll be done. This last summer was a summer where God was teaching our team this very much, right Will? Right Hannah, wherever she is.

You know, we were traveling on the road doing the Cola Clash, and we come into local churches. We were at several churches that are represented here in this room, and there were so many times where God brought us to the end of ourselves, where God brought us to weaknesses where things happened that it would have been really easy for me early on in my ministry to say, this is terrible, this is horrible, I hate this. Kind of like Paul’s thorn in the flesh.

But what started happening is we just decided this summer, we’re going to believe that God is bringing us to the end of ourselves. God is bringing bad situations, hard situations. God’s causing us to go back three steps because he wants to do a miracle.

I’m telling you, I’m thinking of, oh boy, I’m thinking of there was one time, one place that we were at, somebody told us not to go into the pool, and so we, of course, we abide by authority, and later on in the week, we came back again, and we asked if there was anybody else there, and apparently that kid who said no and said it wasn’t our policy wasn’t the manager, and the manager actually said, oh yeah, you can go throughout the whole thing, and

I think it was Hannah went into the pool, and she’s recruiting young people there, and the young man comes up to her later and says, but I thought we told you.

She said, I talked to the manager. Oh, okay, and what ended up happening, even though that seemed bad, we had permission from the person in charge, and I think we had some people come and get saved as a result of that. That was just one small example.

There was another time when we were in South Bend, Indiana. Where are those from South Bend here in the room? All right.

We’re in South Bend, Indiana, and I remember two years prior, I think it was two years prior to us being there, it was a very difficult time. We had a very rough crowd there that evening. I remember the first night, there were some people that got up and left.

Some of you remember that. And preached the gospel. And again, it just seemed like one of those crowds that maybe wasn’t going to be receptive.

Preached the gospel, gave an invitation. This was two years ago. We had one of the biggest invitations I’ve ever had.

Probably close to 40 young people came back at that invitation. About 39 trusted Christ. And it was interesting because we felt like earlier on this isn’t working.

This isn’t moving forward. Well, this last time we were there, and I don’t know, I was in my mind thinking, how could things ever compare to last time? You know, that was such an amazing move of God.

And there were things that were happening in the community and in recruiting that made us feel weak. I remember I personally felt weak. I’d been on a diet all summer, was trying to get back into normal eating, and I instantly, the first night, had brain fog like I’ve never had before.

I was out there calling the competitions, and I couldn’t even feel like I could put two sentences together. And I remember I’m feeling like I am laying track as I’m riding on the train right in front of me as far as my mental thought processes. I don’t know if I made any sense there that night.

I’ll be honest with you. I don’t remember what I said. I just remember feeling like I was hanging on to a rocket for dear life, hoping I don’t fall off.

Well, there that night, knowing the previous time, wondering if we were going to have the same kind of a response again, feeling like I couldn’t even preach. I could hardly think straight. I preached the gospel.

Sure hope it made sense. But evidently, in my weakness, God was doing something. I gave the invitation.

We had another response of close to 40 and 30-something young people got saved there that evening. And that’s not normal. That’s unusual.

And I remember, though, the whole night I’m thinking, and to be honest with you, I don’t like this. I don’t like that I can’t think. God was setting me up for a victory.

There were various times this summer where bad things would happen leading into a week. One week we stopped at a Chipotle, Qdoba? No, Panda Express, that’s right, Panda Express.

And one of our team members, who shall remain unnamed, I won’t say whether they’re here or not, was backing the van up in the parking lot and backed right into a parked car. We didn’t know the extent of the damage as far as everything, but it ended up being totaled according to the insurance. And I remember I was over getting the truck and trailer from another part of the parking lot.

Kenan was with me. And I remember I got a phone call. So and so backed into this whatever.

And I remember Kenan and I are walking. Now you know it wasn’t Kenan. And walking back over there.

And I remember Kenan and I both looked at me. And God had been so working in our heart this summer. we looked at each other when we both knew what each other were thinking, and we said, it’s going to be a good week this week.

It’s going to be a good week this week. Sure enough, it was. I believe we were on our way to Illinois, and there in Illinois, I think we saw like 30 young people saved, something like that, and it was unbelievable.

Unbelievable. We had one of the smallest crowds I think I’ve ever had, but almost everybody got saved, and it was like, it was unbelievable. God showed up.

There were so many times when we had team members going wecko practically and yet we got on our faces and we said god i’m weak sometimes we didn’t even feel right we felt totally off and yet in our weakness god was saying i’ve got you right where i want you now i can do something young person i want to be an encouragement to you here this morning factor god into your weakness because when you factor God into your weakness, God will show up and God

will do miracles.

I know we’re going to hear more about this this afternoon, but as we head to this time of prayer, and we’re going to head right over there in just a moment, as we head to this time of prayer, young people, don’t rebel at your weakness. Embrace it.