(Delivered in the year 2001 in some areas of the Middle-East)
Subject: What will it take to build this ‘Temple?’
Complement: This ‘Temple’ will not be built by might, nor by power but by ‘The Spirit of God.’
Idea: It will take ‘The Spirit of God’ to build this ‘Temple.’
Homiletical Idea: This Temple cannot be built by might, nor by power but only by The Spirit of God.
Introduction: How many of us want to be strong for the coming New Year? Our God has always been the God of a new start. I believe it is fitting for every believer to look as his / her accomplishments in the past year and make new goals (rededicating some old ones too) in the New Year. Now is a good time to give the coming year a jump-start. To do much of what we failed to do this past year. Let this new leaf that you turn be everything that God wants you to be! This day I want to challenge you all for something that you may have never ever thought about nor even pursued to do. A challenge that the world today doesn’t want to accept. Something, which God has been laying upon my heart for quite some time. In this coming year 2006, how many of us want to stutter … limp … have an infirmity (s) in our lives – I believe no one. But I have faith that after today’s Word there will be some of you who would yield to this challenge.
God’s Temple must be built and sustained, not by wealth, nor by its members, nor by virtue, nor by sheer strength, but by My Spirit says the Lord. And you are that temple as proclaimed in 1 Corinthians 3: 16, 17.
But how do we go about this whole idea of building this temple by the Spirit of God?
‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of Hosts.
Do you want to begin this year in your might or in some human power or in The Spirit of God?
God will not do His work by any human might, power or endeavor, but only by His Own Spirit. What is done and achieved by His Spirit cannot be matched by any might or power available from anywhere. This stands in opposition to the visible forces.
When instruments / vessels fail, let us therefore leave it to God to do His work Himself and by His Own Spirit. All of us have some sort of physical / emotional / spiritual weaknesses and we are always trying to hide it from one another. If God wants to get things done through you – you just can’t escape! God will not even permit you to be killed, till His assignment is completed through you. If you don’t believe me ask Jonah.
God has given us great examples from His Word. We’ll look at about three of them.
If you think you are a great talker, you can’t speak for the Lord. You will need to learn to stutter / stammer.
(1) MOSES: (Exodus 4: 10 – 15) He was slow in speech and not eloquent.
God called Moses to redeem the Israelites only after he had the desert experienced for 40 years. Moses told God that He was making a wrong choice as he couldn’t speak and the right choice (advising God) would be Aaron because he could be a great talker.
God doesn’t choose and build people just because they can talk because when they talk, GOD CAN”T. He has to remain silent. God’s choices are overtly mind blowing – they are out of the world, something we as humans can’t easily comprehend. God chooses those who just can’t make it to the next word - those who stutter and have a hard time articulating. This He does, so that He can speak through them. Those who would depend on God completely to speak through them rather than using their natural ability to be great talkers.
Till Moses died, he used to be a natural stutterer. (There is no evidence in ‘The Bible’ where God healed Moses completely from his stammer.) We needn’t forget that to stammer is counted as a weakness in the world today.
When God speaks through us, we don’t stutter (because He is a God who doesn’t stutter). Everything just flows fluently.
Today God seeks to build people who can stutter – who just can’t talk without His help. Because then He can speak through them. If you are a great talker, ask God for that stutter so that you would learn to depend on him completely and He could use you as an instrument to speak to His people.
Even in that stammer, Moses was willing to trust God and not depend on any human might or power to achieve what God had assigned Him to do. Thus he learnt early Philippians 4: 13 ‘I can do all things …………..’
The story doesn’t pause at Moses but lets go on and see if we are great walkers, we can’t be runners for the Lord! We need to learn to have that limp.
(2) JACOB: (Genesis 32: 22 – 28) A grabber / deceiver turned limper!
A man who was labeled as a grabber and deceiver, who even went to the extent to deceive his own father and in the bargain, was deceived by his own father-in-law.
Jacob was a great walker. He had walked from Canaan to Iraq and back. We all already know that great walkers can’t be great marathon runners.
Then one night Jacob had a wrestling match with God Himself and didn’t want to leave the Lord till He blessed him. He was blessed but with a limp and renamed as Israel – Prince with God. (The Bible doesn’t give any evidence that Jacob’s limp was ever healed.) Through his limp He learnt to depend on God.
God is not looking out for great walkers, but people who are willing to limp ……… so that they will run for the Lord in His dependence.
Today if we are walking an unholy or unconsecrated walk with God (unlike Enoch), we need to ask God to give us that limp so that we can run for Him.
In all this Jacob started to depend on God and he learnt very quickly what is reflected in 1 John 4: 4 “Greater is He Who is in us than he who is in the world.”
We are not talking on physical grounds here but on spiritual ones. If we are strong, we can’t be His useful instruments. We need to ask God for an infirmity so that we can learn to depend on Him completely.
The story doesn’t end with Jacob but now we’ll concentrate on our last man in the analogy – Paul a man of infirmities.
(3) PAUL: (2 Corinthians 12: 5 – 7 and 2 Corinthians 11: 30)
He was a treacherous man – constantly on the move to persecute Christians. He was a person who was completely whole but his acts displeased God greatly. Thus God blinded him temporarily so that he could see again. He came to the Lord in a miraculous way. He had an infirmity and even in that thorn in the flesh, he was able to preach the gospel, sustain the persecution and yet come out through all trials and tribulations. If he had depended on his own might and power, he would have failed miserably. Thus we need to depend upon ‘The Spirit of God’ rather than in the might and power of this world.
Paul was able to experience all this as he clearly states in 2 Corinthians 12: 10 “I take pleasure in infirmities …….. for when I am weak then I am strong.”
We need to allow God to be MORE in our lives so that we become LESS - till we diminish totally and only He prevails. More of Him and less of us!
There will come a time in our lives when we will stutter so much that we will stop talking and start speaking for the Lord!
There will come a time in our lives when we will limp (it will be evident in our lives) so much that we will stop walking and start running for the Lord!
There will come a time in our lives when the infirmity in our lives will become so strong that we will become so weak in order to be strengthened by the Lord! That we will be so empty that He will fill us till the brim with His Holy Spirit.
The Lord doesn’t trust us when we can talk because then He can’t speak through us.
The Lord doesn’t trust us when we can walk because then we can’t run for Him.
The Lord doesn’t trust us when we are whole because then we don’t need to depend on Him. Its when we have the infirmity then only we are strengthened and He can do His mighty wonders through us.
Only in our infirmity can the Lord strengthen us.
Lord God I don’t want to be eloquent because I desire Your eloquence through me.
Lord God I don’t want to be a great walker because then only I’ll learn dependence on You and be able to run for You.
Lord God I don’t want to be whole because in my infirmity alone I can be strong by Your Spirit that abides in me.
Resounding what Zechariah said in chapter 4 verse 6 “Not by might, nor by power but by My Spirit says the Lord.” We can now conclude that –
Conclusion:
(a) Remember with that stuttering Moses, God was able to deliver the Israelites from the hands of the Egyptians.
(b) Remember with that limping Jacob, God was able to promise that the Israelites would abide in the Promised Land. He then went on to fulfill it.
(c) Remember with that physical infirmity in Paul, God was able to provide us the New Testament.
I’ll repeat what I had asked right in the beginning. In this coming year 2006, how many of us want to stutter … limp … have an infirmity (s) in our lives – so that God can use us as His worthy vessels just as He used these stalwarts. I encourage you all to yield and boldly step out to take up this challenge!
