A few weeks ago, I was given a list of 75 questions asked by our elementary kids about God. One of them was, “Where is God?” A few astronauts have said that there must not be a God because they’ve been out in space, and they didn’t see him there. Some say God’s in the earth, he’s in the rocks, he’s in the trees, he’s in the water, and—actually those things are God. Other say God is you. Some say he’s a “universal truth” we can tap into in order to experience spiritual enlightenment and self-actualization. Other are content to say, “God is wherever and whatever you think he is or want him to be.”
Two things set us apart from these opinions regarding God. First, that God is personal. He’s the Creator of the universe who thinks and feels and loves, but exists in a dimension that you can’t touch with your hands, you can’t hear with your ears, and you can’t see with your eyes—even from a space ship. Second, God says that people don’t think they need him, but they do.
Do you ever think about winning the lottery, especially when you see the billboards saying that the Lotto is up to $20 million? You could retire. You’d never need to work, or have to depend on a job or anyone else to support you. Why does that sound so good? Because we don’t like needing or being dependent on someone else. We don’t like depending on people because then we have to be accountable to them, or because they might hurt or take advantage of us.
And that presents a problem for us because God says we need him and, even though we might not often think of it in these terms, we wish we didn’t need God. We don’t want to need God. We don’t want to be sinful. We wish Jesus didn’t have to die for our sin. We wish we never did the stuff that brings us to God asking for forgiveness. We don’t want to incur wounds that only God’s Spirit can heal.
Many of us are okay with the fact that we need him. That’s why we’re here—to worship the God who says, “You need me,” but yet, our need for God often gets in the way. The things that create this need for God—the reasons God says we need him are also the things that often make us feel far from God. So if we could just eliminate those things from our lives, then we would be so much closer to God. Right? Maybe. But maybe not.
What I want you to consider today is that those places in which you feel farthest from God are the places where God wants to meet you. The places where you feel most distant from him are places where you can also experience the greatest degree of closeness, confidence, security, and intimacy. So where is God? Where can you find God? First,
You will find God where you’re weak
After I became a follower of Christ, I began to see how destructive behavior and thinking patterns in my life—things God calls sin—were in opposition to my growing faith in God. I wanted them in my life because I like them, and I didn’t want them in my life because I knew they weren’t good for my spiritual health. I experienced that inner conflict—feeling perpetually drawn to things I really didn’t want to do. So I came up with a proposal for God. Just remove any and all of my natural desires to sin—It made a lot of sense to me. Just do a lobotomy on that part of my brain that was drawn to these things. God doesn’t want me to sin. I don’t want to sin. I’m thinking, “Just get rid of the problem. ‘It’s a ‘win-win.’” But God didn’t do it—not because he wants me to sin, but because if he removed my ability to choose, then he would also be removing the authenticity of my relationship with him—the ability to respond to God freely—both positively and negatively. So there I was—stuck with my weaknesses—some that annoyed me, some that really bothered me, and some I absolutely detested.
We don’t like the word “weakness” because it always sounds negative; we like words like “power,” “strength,” and “victory.” That’s how we want to see ourselves and we think it’s what God wants for us as well. But when we feel overwhelmed by our weaknesses we often feel very far from God. Maybe you feel dirty or unacceptable to God when you’re weak. Maybe you feel like you’ve failed him, or disappointed him. You feel like you’re buried beneath your weaknesses—like being buried underneath a giant trash heap and, in order to regain closeness with God, you’ve got to crawl out from under your weaknesses and shake them off all by yourself. But what if the place where God wants to meet you is actually underneath that trash heap in your weakness?
Within 20 years after the resurrection of Christ, the Apostle Paul had influence all over the Mediterranean basin. God chose him to write two-thirds of the books of the New Testament. He was—and still is—a major force and an influence during the formative years of the history of our faith. No one wrote about spiritual victory and power more than Paul, but at the same time, Paul struggle with his weaknesses. In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul gives his readers a revealing look into his own spiritual journey, beginning with verse 7:
7 even though I have received wonderful revelations from God. But to keep me from getting puffed up, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from getting proud. 8 Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away.
Apparently, one of Paul’s weaknesses was conceit, so God allowed what Paul called “a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.” After studying that phrase “messenger of Satan” in the literary and cultural context of the Corinthians, I believe that “messenger from Satan” was a chronic temptation to sin—one to which he sometimes fell, that kept him from thinking too highly of himself because of the ways God had chosen to use him. He wanted to get rid of it just as much as we do our weaknesses. He even begged God repeatedly to remove it, but God said, “No.” Now look at verse 9.
9 Each time he said, “My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me. 10 Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite content with my weaknesses and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
From Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians, it looks like God allowed him to be attacked by this temptation to make sure he was constantly reminded of his dependence on and need for God. “But wait a minute, doesn’t God want us to experience spiritual victory and power in all areas?” What Paul was learning was that “spiritual victory” doesn’t always come in the form of the absence of weaknesses. What God knew that Paul didn’t was that, if Paul’s weakness was eliminated, it wouldn’t draw Paul closer to God. His dependence on God and his awareness of his need for God would thin out. Without it, he wouldn’t experience God’s strength to the degree or the same way he would if it remained with him. And sometimes, that’s where God wants you to find him.
Those who will struggle with this are often those who struggle to see God’s acceptance of you right where you’re at, just the way you are. It doesn’t mean God wants to leave you that way. He wants to see you experience healing and growth even more than that you do. But instead of seeing God graciously meeting you where you’re at in your weakness—underneath that trash heap—you see him waiting for you outside, shaking his head like a disappointed father. But if that was where God was waiting for Paul, he would have just told Paul to get his act together and quit whining. Instead, he said that it was in his weakness that he would gain a truer understanding and experience of God’s strength and power.
Some people think of their relationship with God like a “spiritual decathlon” in which your weaknesses are events in which you are competing, and nothing less than total victory is really good enough. For others, it’s like going to college. God’s the professor and our weaknesses are like failed classes we have re-take in summer school. Or maybe you see God like you see your boss. Keep up the good work and God’s happy. Screw up and your job is on the line. This is especially difficult for people who were raised in homes where love, acceptance weren’t given freely. Instead of forgiveness, there were reminders of every weakness and failure you’ve ever experienced. So it’s difficult to accept God’s love and acceptance and forgiveness as gifts that are both offered and given freely and unconditionally just because he loves you.
But God meets you in your weakness because when those things make you pray more, when they make you desire more and more to be free from sin, when they remind over and over again that only God can heal and transform your heart—that’s where God is meeting you and those things in which you are weak no longer need to be seen as barriers between you and him. Look at Psalm 103:8-14 with me.
8 The Lord is merciful and gracious; he is slow to get angry and full of unfailing love. 9 He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever. 10 He has not punished us for all our sins, nor does he deal with us as we deserve. 11 For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. 12 He has removed our rebellious acts as far away from us as the east is from the west. 13 The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. 14 For he understands how weak we are; he knows we are only dust.
Some of you need to highlight this, or print it out and put it on your mirror or your dashboard so you can read it every day. Look at how God is described here—maybe even underline all the words that describe him: merciful, gracious, slow to get angry, full of unfailing love, tender, compassionate, and understanding of how weak we are. That’s not how you describe someone who measures your performance on a score card. That’s how you describe someone who finds you at your lowest point, in your most humiliating failures, and in your weakest moment, because he cares about you more than your performance. Paul thought that an elimination of his weakness was what he needed, but God said,
“My gracious favor (or my grace) is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12)
Think about that last phrase: God’s power “works” or is seen in our weakness. And if you feel like you don’t see God’s power in your life, maybe it’s because you’re not letting him meet you in your weaknesses. That’s why the writer of the book of Hebrews said,
Jesus is not unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, He was tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)
When we turn away from God in shame because we’ve blown it or are feeling weak, we miss out on this connection described right here. It’s important to remember that this is not saying God doesn’t want to strengthen you in the areas in which you’re weak, or help you become free from destructive thinking and behavior. But unless you’re really letting God use those things to draw you closer to him, you’ll continue in a recurring cycle of failure, trying to overcome it in your own strength or self-help techniques, and then failing again. But on the other hand, some of our weaknesses will be with us throughout this life, and God’s not going to beat you with them like a club, even if that’s what you do to yourself.
Let those weaknesses become the things that remind you of your need for God. Be thankful that they make you pray for strength. Realize that it’s often only in those moments of weakness that you experience God’s grace and forgiveness and acceptance. Reach out for God when you’re weak. He’s there with mercy and grace to help you in your time of need. That’s why you’ll find God where you’re weak. In the same way,
You will find God where you’re powerless
Two weeks ago, I had to go to traffic school. It’s basically detention for grown-ups, and they want to make sure, right from the start, that you know you are totally powerless. So the first item on the agenda is to go around and make everyone confess why they’re there. I would guess that one of the most attractive things about being a traffic school teacher is the power you have over 40 people for eight hours. They can let you go early or hold you until the very last moment while you sit in an uncomfortable plastic chair, listening to them talk about what stupid drivers we all are.
We fear being powerlessness that it often makes us feel relieved and happy when we see it in someone else. Thirteen months ago I had an attack of kidney stones, and when I went for an x-ray, the nurse says, “Oh, you’ve got kidney stones? They say it’s the male equivalent to giving birth.” And she’s smiling while she says this. I feel like I’ve got a bowling ball trying to get out of me and she’s got this satisfied smirk on her face, enjoying seeing a man experience pain. Actually I think every woman whose ever given birth feels a sense of vindication every time they see a man in pain.
We hate feeling powerless. Circumstances or people have control of your life or maybe even just part of it and you just feel like you’re being helplessly dragged down the road behind them. Maybe it’s an illness or a condition that refuses to be contained or respond to treatment. Or because of their role or position in your life (like an employer or a parent) someone is exploiting or abusing you in some way. You feel powerless against circumstances or people and you feel like that thing or that person gets between you and God and prohibits you from experiencing the joy God wants to give you in life.
In Mark 5:24-34, there’s a story about a woman who was powerless. She was sick and wasn’t getting better. She was also being exploited by other people and was felt powerless against their abuse. As well, because of the controlling nature of the religion and culture in which she lived, she felt powerless to reach out to Christ, whom she saw as her last chance for freedom. The setting in Mark 5 is in the busy part of a town. Jesus is there and crowds of people are following him and listening to him. A religious leader has asked Jesus to heal his daughter so they’re all heading toward his house, and we pick up the story in verse 24.
24b A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.
That word “bleeding” implies that her condition was a continual bleeding from her reproductive system, which would make her unclean according to the instructions regarding the Mosaic law found in the book of Leviticus[1]. Since she is unclean, she’s also prohibited from being in a public place like this where she might touch others or where others might inadvertently touch her, which would thus cause them to become unclean. It doesn’t just say that the doctors didn’t or couldn’t make her any better, but that she suffered under their care. This is because medical care during this time often included a lot of superstitious ritual and experimentation. Since there was no medical insurance, she’s broke and her condition has worsened in their care. She’s a woman in a culture in which women had no rights and no voice. She’s sick, but can’t afford decent care. Her religion has declared her unclean. She’s powerless—but that’s where she finds God. Look now at verse 27.
27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
After she touches him, God’s power immediately healed her[2] and if the story ended right there, we could talk about how we all need to come to Christ for healing, but then Jesus complicates things in the way he responds to her in verse 30.
30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
It’s important to remember that this woman didn’t understand who Christ really was and, he acts as if he doesn’t know who touched him. Then, instead of rebuking her for violating the powerful, controlling religious traditions and laws, he shows concern and compassion and values her pain and her needs on all levels—physically and spiritually. Look at verse 31.
31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.
Put yourself in this woman’s shoes. Every eye is on her. She has touched this man; she has touched all these people and, according to the law, made them all unclean. She’s been caught and is most likely expecting to be punished, maybe even killed for what she has done. If she wasn’t a full-scale social and religious outcast, she is now. But on the other hand, don’t forget that she also knows she’s been healed. God met her in her powerlessness, even though no one around her knows it or would even believe it. But not only has Jesus healed her, now he protects her. Look at verse 34.
34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
At this point, it’s certain that the men in the crowd would have only been thinking of how they should punish her. Right now, she’s at the bottom of the social and religious food chain and Jesus gives her value, compassion, and freedom, and takes her to a new level that is even more important than the fact that she has been healed. He meets her right where she’s at. He makes her burdens his highest priority right at that moment. He didn’t minimize her pain or her condition. He didn’t say, “Hey, you’re going to have to get in line honey, I’ve got an important man with a dying daughter here.” He stopped and told her that she is his child—his daughter. He didn’t give her a theological sermon. He touches her. He receives her. And he honors her faith just as it is.
Out-of-control finances or debt will make us feel powerless. It doesn’t seem like God is with you, but he’s there. The more you acknowledge your need for him, the more your eyes will be opened to his presence in your life. When you’re willing to submit to God’s wisdom, he’ll show you the ways in which your situation can be turned around.
Illness or chronic pain or debilitating conditions make us feel powerless. You’re frustrated and discouraged, wondering if you’ll ever be free. Christ is with you. He will be your strength. He will assure you that, someday, you will be heaven where you will never suffer again.
People who shouldn’t have so much influence or sway over you get it anyway and you feel powerless. You feel far from God, but you’re not. He’s there with the strength and the wisdom you need to establish boundaries or even distance between you and that person who is taking advantage of you.
Listen to these words about how being powerless isn’t so bad:
We depend on the Lord alone to save us. Only He can help us, protecting us like a shield. In Him our hearts rejoice, for we are trusting in His holy name. Let Your unfailing love surround us, Lord, for our hope is in You alone. (Psalm 33:20-22)
When you’re weak and when you’re powerless,
God is there. He will help you and protect you—maybe not the ways you’re praying for, but his love surrounds you. You can trust him. I wish I could promise that God will make you feel better, but I can’t. I can only promise that, when you find God in those places of weakness and powerlessness, he will touch you in deep places.
For some, that’s where you need to start. You hate feeling weak or powerless and that’s why you’ve never been able to accept God’s gifts love and acceptance and forgiveness. But maybe today’s the day you meet God there, letting him into your life, accepting the fact that you need him, accepting that weakness and powerlessness will always be a part of your life to one degree or another, and accepting his forgiveness, and love. Today you can become his child and accept his promise that, because you’re his child, you will spend eternity in heaven with him. If that’s something you want to do, I’ll be here after the service, along with other who can help you understand that decision, or you can contact me during the week and we can talk about some more.
What many of us know is that you can be a child of God and still struggle to connect with God when in your weakness. So maybe that’s where God wants to meet you so that he can take you to the depth that the Apostle Paul experienced. He learned the hard way that God’s grace is so vast, he can even take our worst weaknesses, and use them to take us deeper in our faith and trust and dependence on Christ.
Thoughts and Questions for Group Discussion:
John stated that God says people don’t think they need him but they do.
¨ Have you been in the habit of forgetting your need for God?
¨ Do you call on him more in dealing with certain problems, unrelated to your own weaknesses or sins?
John also stated that we can find God where we’re weak. He added that when we feel overwhelmed by our weaknesses, we may not look for God, but it is then and there that God wants to meet us; waiting to love us.
¨ Have you ever been so caught up in the weakness you were dealing with and the consequences of it, that you didn’t think to look for God’s love?
¨ Or did you want to seek it, but felt ashamed or embarrassed by your actions?
John pointed out Paul’s struggle with his weaknesses and that, in his weakness, he was made strong by the power, love, mercy, and grace of God. John also added that when we attempt to beat a weakness without God’s help, we are trying to defeat it on human strength alone.
¨ Do you feel it is God’s desire for us to fight our weaknesses and struggle through life alone?
¨ How do you think God feels when we reject the help he offers in defeating our weaknesses?
Paul also said this boasting of one’s weakness was another way of demonstrating one’s reliance on God.
¨ What type of message would your reliance on God send to others who know you?
¨ How would genuine reliance on God change your life?
¨ How would you deal differently with struggles?
John also said that we will find God where we’re powerless. Consider the last time you felt powerless.
¨ Did you turn to God for help?
¨ If so, how did you feel knowing that God was there with you and knew your needs?
¨ If not, how did you feel going through your struggle on human strength alone?
John said that every time we reach out to God he will be there.
¨ How often are you willing to reach out to God?
¨ Are you ready to make it a habit?
¨ Are you willing to be and appear needy in order to truly rely on God?
¨ What do you think will be the worst and best things to happen should you be habitually reliant on God?
