Why Me 1997

Why did God put Paul in your life? Why did he choose you? Did he look out over this vast sea of humanity and say, ah, there's a person with talent, good set of brains, lots of potential, why they're even good looking. Is that the kind of person I can use? I mean, that's how they do it in General Motors. But for some reason, God doesn't seem to do it the way they do it at General Motors and NBC, and it comes to calling people and putting them to work in his favor.

Look at the 12 men that Jesus chose to be apostles. Not one of them would make it for the town scouts who imprisoned them today. What seminary in this country would accept a man like Peter? His clothes smelled of fish, and his beard was never trimmed.

Ponder through the pain, always raising questions. What could Philip put on, on a resume? And the woman, God chose to be the mother of Jesus. Why, she came from one of the most backward towns in Israel, couldn't read or write.

And Saul of Tarsus, he had a little education. But he was out to kill every Christian he could find. He supervised the stoning to death of the first Christian martyr.

And he's going to be an apostle? It almost looks as if God deliberately chooses the most unlikely people to serve in his kingdom. For consider your call, brethren, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 26. For consider your call, brethren, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low, despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

And that's how God chose us. He looked out over this vast sea of humanity and saw us struggling, weak, troubled, confused, and said, there's a person who might give me some room to work in their life. He did not choose us because of our talent, our good looks, our celebrity status, but for the very opposite reason.

He chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, that's us. Chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. Chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

He chose us so that people looking at us could save. If God can save a person like that, there's hope for me. From Matthew 11, at that time Jesus declared, I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise in understanding and revealed them to David.

Yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will. The things, the ways of his disciples, and you, me. But, now that he's chosen us, we have to allow this principle to work in our lives.

We have to learn how to let God's strength be made perfect in our weakness. Have you noticed how so often believers are far more effective in the early days of their discipleship than they are as the years pass? We start out as fanatics. We put our whole heart into it, but then as we mature, it seems like we lose our fire.

We become more cautious, more discreet. We start to worry about the consequences if we open our mouth or take a stand. Somehow we've changed.

Now it's more like our show instead of God's show. In the beginning, we knew we were, we had nothing to offer. We were utterly dependent on God for everything.

We were all the time crying out to Jesus for wisdom, strength, power, more of your spirit, Lord, give me, I must have more of your spirit. Did you know, poor, your life is to me, I'm as dead as a stall. And he heard our prayers and he did pour out more of his spirit on us and more and more.

He enlightened our eyes. He anointed our tongue. He guided our steps all as he was with us in our weakness.

But as the years passed and our knowledge of the word increased and the answers came more easily to our problems. And we had a few victories under our belt. We began to serve God from a position of self-confidence rather than God confidence, which very rapidly became self-interest rather than God's interest.

It was so subtle we didn't even realize what was going on. We still use the jargon of humility. We're always quick to say, oh no, it's not me.

It's the power of God working through me. But in fact, the power of God was having less and less room to work through us because we were so full of ourselves. Doctrinally correct.

Strictly right on. But less and less effective because we were doing what we were doing, not out of God's strength, but out of our own. Then one day in the providence of God, something happened that caused our confidence in our own powers to be shaken.

Perhaps it was a failure at one time. Or a sudden change in the spiritual climate around us. Or a word spoken by a friend or a stranger.

But we could see, now we could see the hand of God bringing us down, waking us up, bringing us to our senses. We were being humble. And pretty soon we realized we had no choice but to let, once again, let God's strength be made perfect in our ways.

Second Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 7. And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelation, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you.

My strength is made perfect in weakness. I will all the more gladly bolster my weaknesses that the power of Christ may rest upon them. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities.

For when I am weak, then I am strong. Now this lesson of letting God's strength be made perfect in our weakness is not one of these lessons that we learn and now we cut it. It's a lesson we have to keep learning over and over again.

All the time, constantly learning. God in his mercy brought us back down again. And I think that applies to probably most of us who are here.

We've experienced that probably more than once in our lives. He brings us down, but we never stay down unless we learn to train, discipline ourselves to eat, sleep, clean, work, rest as servants who are utterly dependent upon the master for the power to serve. I do nothing out of myself, says Jesus.

The father dwells in me. He does the work. Now we have to train our minds to think of Jesus the same way he thinks of his father.

I do nothing out of myself. It is Jesus, the spirit of Jesus in me that's doing it. We're not telling the whole world that.

We're telling ourselves that. He is my life. He is my strength.

He is my wisdom. He is my power. He's the source of whatever life I have.

Only when this becomes the central reality of our heart can the power, the real power of the spirit of the Lord move freely through us. His power moves through our weakness, moves through us when we come to the end of ourselves and stay there. We get a little help with it.

If you're wondering why so many obstacles in your life are keeping you from spreading your wings and flying high, why some of the best things you do go unnoticed, why everybody else is getting the strokes but you, be certain of this. These very things that are keeping you down there, weak, are transforming you, God infusing you if you cooperate, into a vessel of redemptive power. That's how Paul would benefit.

He wrote to the Corinthians, for the sake of Christ's sin, I'm content with weaknesses, insult, hardship, persecution, calamity. For when I'm weak, then I'm strong. And keep in mind that when Paul wrote these words to the Corinthians, he was not the Saint Paul he is to us.

He was a funny-looking little man who couldn't give an eloquent speech if his life depended on it. Somehow he brought these people to faith, but there were many people in that Corinthian church who had very, very little respect for him. Everywhere Paul went, he ran into opposition, rejection, persecution.

His success was visible only to the eye of God, and was confirmed years after his death as history unfolded. But he knew who he was. He knew, as nobody on this earth knew, that God's power was moving through his weakness, and how that power moves.

Nobody was more fruitful than this man. Now it's our turn. The hour is late, and the Spirit of God is indeed sending a trumpet blast through the body of Christ worldwide, commanding us to wake up and get on with the work.

And the men and women and young people who are being anointed to pull down the strongholds of Satan, and set the captives free, and raise the flattering souls from the dead, are not the celebrities. They're the men and women who are willing to let God's power move through their weakness. No one to support them.

You don't have to get somebody to, you know, somehow endorse you. You know what? God didn't even notice your talent and your good looks, even though he gave them to you. He noticed your broken heart.

He noticed your needs. And he chose you to be a sign of what grace can do in a human life. But you will be that sign only if you get off the throne and let him take charge.

Only if you get off the judgment seat and let him do the judging. Many of us drain all the strength out of our lives because we're hypercritical. Of our brothers and sisters, and this fellowship, and that fellowship.

These guys don't know how to do this, that. And then the world out there. But you're in deep judgment.

And empty yourself of yourself as he emptied himself of his real glory. God help us all to get down under the yoke with the lowliest man who ever walked this earth. That we may learn from him what it is to be meek and lowly apart, so that the power of the Spirit of God can move through our weakness as it moved through his.

We must work the works of him who sent us while it is there. The night is approaching when no one can work. And the work he's sending us to do calls for a power far greater than anything we have in ourselves.

It has to come from him. Every bit of it has to come from him. And it will when we learn to turn to him, really thank him, and get ourselves out of the way.

Let's pray. We give thanks and praise to you, Lord God, for the privilege of being included in the move of your Spirit upon the earth at this hour. That for reasons that are totally beyond our comprehension, you put your hand upon us.

And we confess that in some respects many of us are still on that ship to Spain running away from none of us. And we pray that you just keep prompting us and prompting us and pestering us and bugging us and following us and never letting go of us until we wake up. And we pray, Lord God, that you would cause your glory to shine through our lives and every fellowship represented here that it would come to life with a fire of heaven and that our lives emptied out of ourselves will begin to be able to be a channel of your grace to a degree they've never known.

We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Right.

It's thing number 425.