Today, we’re beginning what I plan to be a 3 week message series entitled, Jesus Strong. The text for today’s message will be from the Letter to the Philippians, chapter 4, verse 13. That’s Philippians 4:13. You can go ahead and turn there in your Bible if you’d like and we’ll read it together in a bit. That’s Philippians 4:13.
There’s a letter, purportedly written to an insurance company, that has circulated around for several years now. It’s been used by many preachers and public speakers, and has also been printed in safety bulletins that I’ve seen by various companies.
Honestly, I don’t know if this was, in fact, a real letter relating actual events, or if it was just a bit of creative writing; but I want to read it to you.
It reads:
Dear Sir,
I am writing in response to your request for additional information. In block number 3 of the accident report form, I put "trying to do the job alone" as the cause of my accident. You said in your letter that I should explain more fully, and I trust that the following details will be sufficient:
I am a bricklayer by trade. On the day of the accident, I was working alone on the roof of a new six story building. When I completed my work, I discovered that I had about 500 pounds of brick left over.
Rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley, which, fortunately, was attached to the side of the building at the sixth floor.
Securing the rope at ground level, I went up to the roof, swung the barrel out and loaded the brick into it. Then I went back to the ground and untied the rope, holding it tight to insure a slow descent of the 500 pounds of bricks. You will note, in block number 11 of the accident report form, that I weigh 135 pounds.
Due to my surprise of being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rather rapid rate up the side of the building.
In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming down. This explains the fractured skull and broken collarbone. Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley.
Fortunately, by this time, I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope in spite of my pain.
At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground, and the bottom broke out of the barrel. Devoid of the weight of the bricks, the barrel now weighed approximately fifty pounds.
I refer you again to my weight in the accident reporting form, block number 11.
As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I, again, met the barrel coming up. This accounted for the two fractured ankles and the lacerations on my legs and lower body.
The encounter with the barrel slowed me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell onto the pile of bricks, and fortunately, only three vertebrae were cracked.
I am sorry to report, however, that as I lay there on the bricks, in pain, unable to stand, and watching the empty barrel six stories above me...I again lost my presence of mind...and let go of the rope!
Now, as I said, I haven’t been able to verify the validity of the story, but it sounds VERY MUCH like something that I would do. As many of you know, I am the consummate do-it-yourselfer, and I’m not very good at asking for help, although I DO weigh about twice what the person in the letter weighs… so there IS that!
The point is… there are some things that should not be done alone. One of those is LIFE! The old saying “No man is an Island” is true. We aren’t meant to be alone in this world.
When God created the world and everything in it, each day, He looked at it “and God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:10,12,18,21 & 25)
That is, until he created Adam, and saw that Adam was the only human, made in God’s image, and for the only time in creation, “…God said, “It is NOT good…”” (Genesis 2:18)
So God then created Eve to be a helper – a companion for Adam, and then God saw that, “It was VERY good!” (Genesis 1:31)
And, I suspect that Adam agreed!
So, from creation – we were not intended to be alone. Now, first, that says that we NEED each other. I often hear people tell me that old lie of the Devil that “I don’t need to go to Church to worship God.”
Now, while that’s TECHNICALLY true, in reality it’s just an excuse. We were created to be TOGETHER, and, besides, Hebrews tells us: “… let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another…” (Hebrews 10:25, NLT)
So, we need each other, which means we NEED to be in Church together; BUT, first and foremost, we need Jesus in our lives. With Him, even when I’m all by myself, I’m NEVER alone.
We’ve just come off of a four-week series reminding us of God’s great might, well, now, today, we’re going to read one of my favorite promises in the Bible, Philippians 4:13.
Today, I’ll be reading from the New King James Version, and I’ll have that up on the screen as well.
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
The truth is, we cannot do anything apart from Jesus. We LITERALLY (and I’m using the word “literally” in the traditional sense, not in the modern age speak where people use “literally” to mean the exact opposite… I just LITERALLY DIE when I hear people do that. It LITERALLY explodes my head when I hear people misuse a word like that … but I digress…
We LITERALLY CAN’T LIVE without Him.
The air that we breathe is from God. The food that we eat?
Don’t get me started on the multitudes of ways that famine could seriously damage our food supply. They say that crops in Africa are being decimated by, from what I’ve read, may well be the biggest swarm of locusts since the Plagues.
I just read this week, that if just one Supervolcano like Yellowstone erupted on this planet it could potentially eliminate human existence on at least the entire hemisphere if not the whole earth. There are 6 known supervolcanos and possibly more under the oceans.
By the way… I’m NOT worried about that!
The point is, we are in a state of helplessness, even though we may think we are in control. The great paradox is that the only way that I can be strong is to admit my own weakness – to surrender to Him and trust in His strength.
Christ is the Strengthener:
Now, if you were to do a poll, I think that just about everyone except for die-hard atheists would agree with the statement, “You find strength in God.”
Certainly, Christians should SAY that, because we all know that verse we just read:
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Now, that said, I think that most of us would agree that non-Christians would have no idea what it means to live in the power of God; right?
I mean, if they don’t even KNOW God, they don’t have the Holy Spirit indwelling them, then there’s NO WAY that they can possibly comprehend what it means to live in the power of God.
BUT…
Most Christians do not realize it either.
That is why so many Christians are miserable and full of worry, fear, doubt and dismay constantly.
They are frantically trying to change their life on their own, while they’re wearing a mask with a big smile on it and a t-shirt that says, “I trust in Jesus”.
But the truth is, they have no true peace. They are NOT resting in the comforting arms of Christ.
Talking about that mask reminded me of this TV commercial for an anti-depressant that gave a pretty good portrayal… it looks like this:
And, honestly, that’s about how fake our vain attempts to cover up our failures to others when we need to own it and give it to the Lord.
The Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10:
“He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (NASB)
His Strength Gives Us Victory
We NEED His strength! His strength and it alone is what gives us victory in this life!
This is another lie of the Devil that I have heard often. They’ll say something like, “I believe in the Lord, and I want to accept Christ, but I have to clean up a few things in my life first.”
This past Wednesday, the day that it snowed, I had 2 cell phone screen replacements out at a farm. The property and the barn was a total mess. Trash, junk, all over. The people lived in a couple of travel trailers parked there on the property.
Now, the customers are told that they need to provide a flat surface in a well-lit area to do the repair – and they did, technically, he led me to a side room of the barn… well, the word room is a little generous.
It did have a door and electricity and a light, but it also just had one of those big sliding wood panels to the outside. The “table” was a 4X8 sheet of plywood on 2 sawhorses – and it was much too high to sit down to do the repairs.
I had 2 phones to do, so I was standing, hunched over this plywood in a non-heated side-out from the barn for about an hour and a half.
Well, as it happened, shortly before I finished, I started having stomach cramps, and rather quickly found myself in need of a bathroom. I finished the repair, then asked if they had a bathroom I could use. She winced and said, “Not really.” Trex mart isn’t far. You can go there.
My conclusion was that their trailers were so messy they wouldn’t let me in either to do a repair in a heated space, or to go to the bathroom in a crisis.
That’s the same story for many people with Christ. They don’t want to let Him in to their lives to see what a mess it is! They want to clean it up first.
But, here’s the problem with that – and this is very important!
If you are doing things and trying to overcome anything in your life, whatever it may be, you will fail without the strength of God to carry you through!
Are you struggling with sin? You’ll fail without Christ!
Battling addiction? Without Christ, you’ll fall flat!
Anger management? Christ is the key!
If you’re trying to do it yourself, you are not trusting God and when you’re not trusting God you are putting more trust in yourself than you are in Him!
We don’t trust His wisdom; we don’t trust His timing, and we don’t trust His sovereignty.
We can all see what’s wrong in that picture, right?
And yet, we’ll emphatically say, “I trust the Lord in everything.”
BUT <<PAUSE>>
Do you? Really??
Do you trust God in everything?
Can you give everything over to Him so that He will work the situation out for His good and His glory, or do you get in the way when you assume that you know the outcome and you might not agree with it?
Now, once again, I have to admit that I’m preaching to myself as much as to you, because I’m the first to admit that I’m just as guilty as any of you in this – quite possibly more so than some of you.
The good news is that admitting it is the first step to recovery!
God tells us in Isaiah 41:10:
“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, and I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (NKJV)
So, God tells us, time after time, TRUST ME.
I looked it up in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.
The phrase “Trust God” appears 175 times in the Bible. The phrase “Trust in God” appears 472 times, and “Trust in the Lord” is in there 290 times. If you do the math, just those 3 phrases appear 937 times. You think He means it?
How about the phrases, “FEAR NOT”, “Have no fear”, and “Do not be afraid”? 940 times
Psalm 55 tells us to: “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.” (Ps 55:22 – NIV)
1 Peter 5:7 tells us: “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” (NLT)
Do I really need to go on? Do you get the point? So the obvious question is:
Why Do We Think God’s Strength is Not Enough?
How many times do we worry about God Almighty not being able to see us through? I’d bet it’s more times than we will ever admit! For some reason, we think that we can do some things better than God - our Creator.
For me, I think that one of the reasons is that I am a “control” person. Down deep, it’s a pride thing, I think. It’s hard for me to relinquish control.
For example, when we travel, I drive most of the trip. I used to NEVER let Debbie drive, even when I was getting tired. No matter how long the trip – I drove… and in our younger days, we drove a lot of marathon drives, driving 16, 18, 20 hours a day… and I drove the ENTIRE trip. I used to tell Debbie that I couldn’t sleep when anybody else was driving, only when I was!
That’s how dumb it sounds when I say that I can’t give up control of my life to Jesus!
Here’s the thing… I THINK I’m in control… but I’m not! Want proof? It’s been proven to me several times when MY PLANS were instantly evaporated by a roadside bomb explosion from God.
Like when I swore I’d NEVER preach, until the time that I was the youth & music Minister at Pine Hills Christian Church, the Senior Minister was away for his Master’s Degree final test and one of our long-term members died and guess who had NO CHOICE but to preach the funeral!
Or, when I planned to build a chain of cell phone repair shops throughout Northwest Missouri, Northeast Kansas , Southeast Nebraska, and Southwest Iowa… until my heart issues drove me to Mayo Clinic, where I received the shock diagnosis of heart failure!
Or, how I was building a name for myself in Worship Ministry as the Worship Minister of a Mega-Church – until my teenaged daughter comes up pregnant, resulting in my being shown the door for “family instability.”
I THINK I’m in control – but I’m not! How freeing is it to just admit that, and stop trying to take the steering wheel from Jesus! You see it in movies all the time… what happens when the passenger starts fighting for the steering wheel of a car? It crashes! EVERY TIME!
How easily we forget His words:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? “ (Matthew 6:25-27 - NIV)
Paul sums it all up for us in Philippians 4:6: “Do not be anxious about anything…” (NIV)
How can we do that?
We can only do it when we get out of HIS way. A prayer that I often pray before I step up to lead worship, or to sing, or Preach, is that God will forgive me of the sins that I have committed and the guilt that I carry as a result – that He will help me to empty myself of ME so that I am an empty vessel that His Spirit can fill for Jesus Christ to work through me.
I need to pray that prayer every day – NOT just when I step into the pulpit, but when I get out of bed! In fact, we ALL need to pray that every day, because when we are an empty vessel for Him to fill, then the baggage, the uncertainties, the worries and the stresses that you carry and have carried around for many years; you will finally be able to let go of them.
One last thought:
We are Not Meant to Carry Burdens:
Researchers at the University of Virginia have found that most people perceive a hill to be steeper than it really is, especially if they are tired or carrying a heavy load.
When asked to estimate the slope of a hill, test participants consistently misjudged it, thinking a 10-degree slant was about 30 degrees, and rating a 5-degree slope as nearly 20 degrees.
Hardly any of them believed they could be that far off.
When we are burdened and exhausted, even a very minor problem can seem too big for us to handle. And when we encounter a test in life, we are tempted to just sit down at the base of that tough hill and stay right there, convinced that the grade is too steep for us and we could never conquer it.
That is why we need the strength of the Holy Spirit and the encouragement of God’s Word. Encouragement like we find in Isaiah 40:29:
“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak” (Isaiah 40:29 - NIV).
I don’t know about you, but that promise REALLY strikes a chord in me!
Now, I don’t know for certain, but I don’t think that I’m abnormal. Maybe you might have a different opinion on that... if so - keep it to yourself! But I don’t think that I’m abnormal.
I think that many of you struggle with the same kind of control issue in your life as I do. When you face trials, you want to “regain control”, “get a grip”, “pull yourself back together”, or some other phrase that means that I want to control things to make my life normal again.
It all comes down to a trust factor with God.
God allows trials in our lives to show us that at our weakest points, the strength and comfort of Christ will be the strongest. AND, the opposite is true as well…
When we feel strongest in our own strength is when we have or will have our greatest failures, because if God is not in it, then it is not going to prosper.
Daniel trusted God and stood tall in the lion’s den. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego trusted Him, and God stood in the fire with them. David relied on God’s strength and killed a lion, a bear and a giant.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:28:
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (HCSB)
Just like that bricklayer I read about at the start of this message, we CAN’T do it alone. My strength will always fall short of the challenge I face, but God’s strength will ALWAYS win!
If you’re here today, and you haven’t taken the step of accepting His strength in your life – you won’t make it through life without Him. I want to invite you to become Jesus Strong today. Lay your burdens at His feet and rest, while His strength supports you. Come claim your victory!
