WHAT WAS GOD THINKING?

 

2 Corinthians 4:7 (NIV)
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

               There is a story in the Old Testament about a man named Gideon. God came to Gideon at a time when Israel was living under the oppression of a foreign power. God called Gideon to lead Israel against the Midianites and free them. Gideon was reluctant at first, but God convinced him to trust God and move ahead. Gideon amassed a great army to fight the Midianites, but God told Gideon that he had too many men. God began the process of whittling down Gideon’s army until he was left with only 300 men. Gideon must have been wondering, what is God thinking? This is disaster. But God had a reason and it is the main point of the story. God was going to deliver Israel from the Midianites with only 300 men so that everyone would know that God did it and not Gideon.

               I have been reading a book by Philip Yancey called Vanishing Grace. Yancey raises the question of why God chose to use the Church to be His agents in the world. Over the centuries, the Church has often made mistakes, even really bad mistakes. The Church is filled with flawed people who often mess up. Yet, the Church remains God’s plan A to reach the world. There is no plan B. What was God thinking? The point is that God uses flawed people to show that the power comes from God and not from people.

               The place where we most often mess up is when we start to think that we can do God’s work in our own power. We get an inflated view of ourselves and pride takes over. Soon we are claiming credit for whatever success we have. It is usually at that point that God pulls the rug out from under us and brings us crashing back to earth. Everything we accomplish of any eternal value happens because God is working in us and through us. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians, we are just jars of clay so that God’s glory might shine.

               The greatest evidence of God’s power in the world is when he uses flawed people to accomplish amazing things. Paul had to remind the Corinthian believers, who were struggling with an ego problem, that it was not their greatness that counted, but God’s greatness.

1 Corinthians 1:26-29 (NIV)
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

               God is still using weak, frail, faulty people to accomplish amazing things for His glory. God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things so that everyone will know that God did it. This was a lessen that the Apostle Paul had to learn. Before Paul became a follower of Jesus he had a pretty big ego. He thought that he was God’s agent to purify the people of Israel. God had to humble him and show him that all his accomplishments meant nothing if he was doing them in his own strength. Later, Paul wrote about what he had learned. Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 2 Corinthians 3:4-6 (NIV)

               Many people today have turned away from the Church because some in the Church have chosen to use the weapons of power, politics, and personalities to wage war with the world. Historically, the Church has always been its weakest when it has the most political clout. The Church shines the brightest today when ordinary people do extraordinary things out of love for God. God is still using what the world sees as the weak and unimportant to confound the strong and to transform our world.

               Jesus knew exactly what He was doing when He commissioned His less than stellar disciples to take His message into all the world. He is still calling ordinary people to do extraordinary things in His power, so that the world will know that God is at work.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (NIV)
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Zechariah 4:6 (NIV)
So he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty.