How Can I Fight Feelings Of Inadequacy?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

It was June of 1973. Some of you are just making jokes about how old you are. It's fine. Just a layup for some of you. June 1973, June 3rd, 1973, one of the largest live crowds ever gathered. Here's what it looks like. If you can't see the stage, it's like center up a little bit, that little notch, that is 1.1 million people at a live gathering in 1973. And they all were there to hear Billy Graham preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This was one day of a five day revival. Billy Graham called them crusades. Five days, 3.3 million people in those five days in South Korea heard the gospel. Billy Graham would go around and hold revivals in arenas. Okay? He would hold revivals, they would last days. His longest revival was 16 weeks in Madison Square Garden in 1957. Billy Graham totaled more than 400 of these revivals. So just one was 16 weeks.

Another five days. I'm sure some were one day. He totaled more than 400 of these. And each of them, hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands of people are making decisions to follow Jesus Christ. It was once estimated, believe this is a stat from 2000, it was once estimated that one in every four evangelical Protestants had been to a Billy Graham revival. Just for fun. Did you ever been to a Billy Graham revival? Show of hands, anybody? Two of us, okay. Three, four, oh no, Kenneth is scratching his head. Sorry, just gets me every time. Oh.

Although this is very inspirational, and Billy Graham, what a guy, right? He lived well, died well, ministered well, wasn't perfect, never claimed to be, but a good dude. And this is inspirational. It is so good. However, when you ruminate on this just a little bit, when you stare a little too long at that picture, it can have the effect of making you feel like what you're doing with your spiritual life is not exactly worth it, right? Like, are you speaking to 1.1 million people? You know? What have you done this week? Did it compare to that at all? Will your entire life be able to be, like, what Billy Graham was doing in one day, I probably won't accomplish in a lifetime. Truly, truly. And sometimes, sometimes, on a bad day, on a Monday,

that can be discouraging. That can cut the motivation short at the root sometimes. And maybe for you it's not Billy Graham. Maybe you've never heard of Billy Graham. If you've never heard of Billy Graham, do I have a YouTube rabbit hole for you? Okay. That guy was amazing. Okay, but maybe for you it's not Billy Graham. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's your grandmother.

Maybe it's your life group leader. Maybe it's your mentor. There's somebody in your life, when you look at them, you're like, I could never be like them. I could never do what they're doing. And the effect that that has is that makes you feel like you really couldn't ever do anything spiritually of substance. It doesn't, it's not gonna total much. It's not gonna move the needle that much. Nobody's really gonna notice. Nobody's really gonna talk about it. Why do it?

What is this gonna matter if I do it or not? This morning, we've been going through weak-minded, our series this summer, trying to be weak-minded. Not just Sunday-minded, but whole weak-minded. And a lot of us, during the week, we fight these feelings of spiritual inadequacy. How do I fight these feelings of spiritual inadequacy? Inadequacy's just a big word that means I don't feel like I can do it, ever, or today. How do I fight these feelings of spiritual inadequacy? How do I feel like I can do something of substance spiritually? Because spiritual power, spiritual power, seems like it is associated with really big showy gifts.

You saw the picture of 1.1 million people in Korea. You're gonna tell me Billy Graham is not gifted spiritually. Come on. Of course he is. But sometimes, we cross that line, we cross that line, and we think, we think, oh, people that can get up and do things that I can't do, or people that can do these amazing, that there's a lot of spiritual power there. The church that we're gonna be reading about this morning, we're gonna be in 2 Corinthians 12 this morning. I'm actually gonna annoy you and start in 1 Corinthians 12. Sorry, I don't mean to be annoying. The Corinthian church dealt with this problem, of believing that unless I'm Billy Graham-ing it today, then it's not gonna amount to much. Unless I'm absolutely hitting the top rung on whatever is going on spiritually in my life, unless I'm absolutely killing it, then I might as well not even do anything. I don't have the gifts where it's super showy.

I can't get up here and play guitar and sing my heart out. I can't get up here and preach. I can't do these, I can't lead this group. I can't, and we focus on a lot of what we can, because we're associating those things together. Spiritual power and showy gifts. The Corinthian church had a history of showy gift people receiving more honor. And so you can kinda see it here in 1 Corinthians 12, 21 through 22. Again, we're gonna be in 2 Corinthians 12. I'm just trying to trip you up this morning and keep you awake. It says, this is Paul talking to the church. This is the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. Sorry for the no context on this verse, but let me give it to you very quickly. He's talking about a church, he's likening it to a body.

So he's saying a church is the body of Christ, right? I'm sure you've heard that. Maybe you haven't. And then according to spiritual gifts, so some people, according to their spiritual gifts, are like hands, or some are like feet, or some are like eyes, or some are like whatever. And so he's kinda going on about this. And what he's saying to the church is, some of you are eyes, and you don't get to say to the hands, we don't need you.

And some of you are heads, and you don't get to say to the feet, I have no need of you. You don't get to do that. The reason he's writing that is because people were saying that. He's writing against what's happening in the church in 1 Corinthians. This is the Corinthian church. So it's the same church in 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians. We're just dealing with it in different phases. But in 1 Corinthians, he's writing the letter to combat them to say, listen, just because your gift isn't like super showy, it doesn't mean that you won't amount to much. In fact, he writes a very famous chapter that you've heard at all the weddings that you've been to. It's 1 Corinthians 13, it's the next chapter right after this. And that whole chapter is talking about love, but it's love in the context of spiritual gifts.

He's saying like, if I preach a thousand, I'm paraphrasing at this point, if I preach a thousand sermons, but I don't have love, then it's just a resounding gong. Right? If I do all these like really wonderful things, if I do all these miraculous things, but I don't have love, then it's for nothing. And what Paul is trying to do, he's trying to help this church understand that there are these big showy gifts that get a lot of attention. And in your church Corinth, in this Corinthian church, you are showing those gifts a lot of honor. You're saying, oh, you're kind of important. Either they're saying it out loud or they're not. And so what Paul is saying is on the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. He makes a full argument about it. We can't really go into it. I'm just trying to give you some kind of context. Today, we're gonna pick it up in second Corinthians,

where Paul is going to return to the same idea, but from a different angle. Okay? And so in second Corinthians 12, it opens up before we get to verse five, which is where we're gonna start this morning. He opens up with talking about a man that he knows. We don't know if this is him or not. It's just a man he knows. So we'll just kind of take him at his word. And the man that he knows in the first four verses of second Corinthians 12 is doing amazing things. I mean, stuff that'll make your head spin. Stuff you wouldn't believe if you didn't see it yourself.

And so this is what Paul says about the man, the man who's doing some really amazing spiritual things. By the way, we may or may not know these people. Sometimes they're famous, sometimes they're not, but they've always got some wild story. Like, I was praying in the spirit. I felt like God wanted me to go give some milk to my neighbor, so I gave my milk to my neighbor, and then my neighbor just started crying, and then I was able to show the gospel with him. And you're like, that's amazing. Like, I kind of hate you right now, because that's awesome.

Not really, I don't hate them. Okay. I don't really hate them. I'm like spiritually jealous. I have no idea what that is. Okay, here we go. We're just gonna get to Scripture. It says, on behalf of this man, this man who's doing amazing things, on behalf of this man, I will boast, but on my own behalf, I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. Though, if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth. We're gonna stop there in the middle of verse six, because we need to kind of understand what he's saying. He's saying, I'd boast about this guy all day long, but I'm not gonna boast on my own behalf.

He's circling back to the idea of comparison, but he's taking a personal angle. So he's saying, look, there's these other people that are doing amazing things, and I'll talk all day about those guys, but I'm not going to boast about myself. I'm not gonna do that, even though, even though if I did, I could. That's what he's saying at the end. I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth. In other words, if you wanna have a standoff on who has more amazing spiritual things happen to them, Paul's saying, I got a few in the chamber. Okay, I don't know if you're gonna win that fight, because I've got some amazing stories. Have you ever been shipwrecked? You ever been hit by a snake and not die? No? Oh, cool, cool, just checking. So, I mean, Paul could run laughs around most people on spiritual fantastic things happening to them, right? All these visions, Paul's seeing thousands

of people come to Jesus. Paul has this amazing testimony about how he used to kill Christians, and then he met Jesus on the road, and he became one. I mean, that's a fantastic testimony. If that's your testimony, man, don't hide it. Like, tell that testimony all day long. That is an amazing testimony. Paul had all of this. Paul's been rescued from certain death several times. Okay, so Paul is saying, I'm not gonna boast on behalf of myself, but I could if I wanted to, but I don't. Let's read all of verse six in the whole thing. So it says, though, if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I'd be speaking the truth, but I refrain from it so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. Okay, there's a lot there. Paul is saying, I'm not gonna boast about myself. Why? Because it would be counterproductive. It'd be counterproductive on two fronts.

Number one, it would be a distraction from what Jesus has done. He's saying, so that no one may think more of me, then he sees in me or hears from me. What are they seeing in him and hearing from him? They're seeing and hearing his testimony. They're seeing and hearing him preach the word of God. They're seeing and hearing him serve and love and care for churches. That's what they're seeing and hearing in him. So he's saying, he's saying, look, I don't want the spotlight on the amazing things that happen because that's gonna take away from what Jesus is doing in my life. And I don't wanna confuse those two. I wanna keep them kind of separate. I want you to focus only really on the testimony, right? Not on my persona. I'm not trying to make Paul famous. I'm trying to make Jesus famous, right?

Look, even describing Billy Graham's testimony, right? Or his ministry, 1.1 million people. It is hard, it is hard to separate sometimes in describing it even, what Billy Graham did versus what Jesus did. I just told you all about Billy Graham's ministry. I didn't mention Jesus once. It was still amazing. But it's an easy slip. Do you see what I'm saying? It's an easy slip. What Paul's saying is, I don't wanna go on that slip. I don't wanna do that. I wanna keep the focus on the testimony. Look at verse seven, 2 Corinthians 12, seven, next verse. So to keep me from being conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Interesting, real interesting. So the first thing he's saying, it'd be counterproductive because it would distract from what Jesus is doing.

It would put the focus on me. I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna put the focus on my persona. But the second thing, the reason it's counterproductive is because it would puff me up. It would puff me up. If I boasted about what happened to me, then I would inevitably become conceited. Look, it is no wonder why Christian celebrity pastor X has some major fall from grace, right? Some major skeleton in the closet that comes out or major mistake, major sin habit, major whatever, secret life, who knows? The reason that those things happen to, often happen to celebrity pastor X is because there's a lot of pressure on that guy to boast about what he's doing.

It is easy, in other words, for him to become conceited about what's happening in his life. And some of you don't have that problem this morning. Some of you have the opposite problem. You have no confidence in your spiritual ministry. You have no, like, I mean, like you're like, this might not be a good week. I mean, this might be a terrible week. I have no idea, right? But you're not like riding high, right? But when you have a bunch of people around you that can recount all of your amazing deeds at the drop of a hat, who have financial incentive to say yes to you, right? What kind of person do you think that's going to produce? A conceited one, for sure. Every time.

Now, certain celebrity pastors take really exhaustive measures to keep from that. God bless them. I'm not trying to throw a rock at every celebrity pastor out there. I'm just trying to help you understand that the situation that they're in is difficult because the propensity for them to become conceited. In fact, John Piper himself, man, John Piper, the great saint, he took, I think he took a couple of years off, six months to a year off because he said he was just dealing too much with pride. Super refreshing, by the way. And yeah, he's just living out what we see in 2 Corinthians 12, seven.

That if you can go on and on about how, you know, all these amazing things that you're part of with the ministry that you're involved in and on and on and on and on, you're just really kind of washing yourself in pride and you will become conceited. If I boasted, Paul is saying, if I boast about all that happened, I become conceited. Now, the next part on here is troublesome, isn't it?

Because we see God plant a thorn in Paul's flesh just so we're clear, a messenger of Satan. Okay, I hope you're awake this morning. Giving him a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass him, to keep him from becoming conceited. So the method that God is using to keep Paul humble is a messenger of Satan, a thorn in his flesh. So a thorn gets planted.

And it makes us worry, I think, upon first reading, it makes us worry that we will get one too, or we will deserve one, or we will, something. That God's gonna have to put it into overdrive to keep us humble, right? Well, rest assured, you likely already have one. Sorry, I hate to ruin your day, but you likely already have a thorn, and you likely already see it as something to get over. You don't see it as some thing that's actually in your life as a limitation on your heart to become conceited.

You just think you can prioritize your life around it. You think it's something that you can get over and achieve and kind of Elon Musk your way into spiritual maturity, right? I'm just gonna work 85 hours on it a day, and it'll be fine. You likely already have one. Also, consider this, that you and I both, we have so many impurities clouding our life already. I don't know, I don't know if God's like, let's throw another thorn in there. I don't know if that's happening right now. I think we're doing a great job on our own, limiting ourselves to what's going on, right? Spiritually speaking, Paul is in a precariously unique position, or at least a position that we're not gonna always be in. Not many of us are just walking around like, man, God's done so many amazing things, except I have this thing that's keeping me from being totally conceited from all of the revelations I'm having.

That's just not really you or me. That's just not really happening at the time. It's still troubling because it's a thorn, a messenger of Satan. I realize the whole messenger of Satan thing is trippy, and I wanna give way more time to it, and I cannot this morning because I gotta preach about other things, however, it is enough to say, you know, if you're, you know, is God using Satan to achieve his purposes? Sure, yeah. Whether Satan is knowledgeable of that, I don't know. I don't really care. God's doing what God's gonna do, and there's, I mean, God uses your idiot moves too, right? Me too, mine too, right? Like God's not worried about it, right? And he's gonna do what he's gonna do. It's good, it's good. But like the idea that this thorn is coming,

the use of this thorn is that it reminds us of what is actually important. The reason that thorn is there is to spur us into remembering what is important. Look at verse eight, it's funny. It says three times, I pleaded with the Lord about this, that he should, that it should leave me. Paul is begging for it to be removed. This is not something he had to pray harder for. This isn't something he needed to watch a video about. This isn't anything like that. This is Paul saying, there is a roadblock in my life. I'm mad about it. I see it as a barrier between me and maybe more ministry or more productivity or more something. And God is saying, no, no. Defense is there for a reason. The thorn is in your side for a reason. And God answers, look at the next verse. Here's his answer to being pled with. The Lord answers Paul and says, my grace is sufficient for you. Let's just stop and say amen on that.

God's grace is sufficient for you, okay? For my power is made perfect in weakness. God's answer reframes the thorn into something good. And Paul really spells it out for us in the latter part of this verse. It says, therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Look, your, there might not be yours. Showy gifts, big showy gifts, right? They can trick us into thinking that we have more spiritual power than we actually have. They can trick us into thinking that we have fewer problems than other people. And it doesn't just trick us, it tricks other people too. Right, I don't know how many times. I don't know how many times. I'm at, I'm just having a conversation with somebody and I've just met them and we're talking and they're just being normal and that means they're talking about whatever they're gonna talk about

so they might drop a cuss word, they might, whatever, right? And I'm not clutching the pearls, I'm not being weird. I'm just rolling with it, right? I get it. And then like, I don't know, 10 minutes in the conversation, it comes out that I'm a pastor, they found me. It comes out that I'm a pastor and I watch them like think back over the last 10 minutes and review everything that they've just said to me and many of them, especially, I don't know, especially if they're 50 plus, I don't know why that's the range, but if it's 50 plus, they're going to say something like, well, if I'd have known you were a pastor, I probably wouldn't have said what I was, which is really funny to me and I kind of laughed through it, it's fine. Sometimes when people find out that you can preach on a Sunday morning, they want to artificially slap some reverence on what they're saying to you,

on how they present themselves to you. You don't think that's social power? You don't think if that goes to my head that I can become conceited on that? Come on, man. The show we gifts can trick us into thinking, can trick other people into thinking that we have more spiritual power than we have and we have fewer problems than we have. It can delude all of us. And what Paul is saying right here, what he's writing down, what the Lord is telling you, what he's sharing with us, it runs exactly counter to that. It punches that in the face. It, I mean, it does worse. It like stabs it in the throat. It kills it dead in the moment. He gives us a kind of a resumptive statement in verse 10. He says, for the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. And that's not just some cool play on words.

That's not some, oh, it's, you know, it's like a conundrum. No, no, it's actual, it's a fact. He's saying, when I endure these things, I am strong. When I, when I am my own power, am weak, that is an actual moment of strength. That's when I'm cresting the hill. I don't know if you've ever ridden a bike for a long time. It's painful. Ask any guy in the Tour de France, it's very painful. And you know what the most painful is? Most painful is like you're on the last leg of the bike and you realize like, oh, that's uphill. For like two miles, that's uphill. Oh my gosh, what kind of degree slope are we at now? You know, and you're just, oh, and your legs are, you know, you're just trembling. You just look terrible. And you don't feel close to the finish line, right? You feel like the finish line is way far away. Even though you are, even though you are actually cresting the hill to the finish line,

you don't feel it, you're exhausted. Right, because what do you do after you cross the finish line, you like fall off the bike? You like lay down, like people just throw water on you. You know, if any gets in your mouth, it's fine. And that's after like a mile for me. So you don't feel it, you feel the opposite. But spiritually speaking, when you feel the opposite, you are cresting the hill. Let me put it a different way. Spiritual power, true spiritual power is only found in inadequacy. It's actually the only place it is. That if you look for spiritual power in other places, it's false, you won't get it.

It'll be a snare. You think it's spiritual power, and so you dive right in, but you realize it's a pool with no water and you break your neck. It's a trick. It's a mirage. It'll kill you. It's terrible. The only place you can find spiritual power is right in your inadequacy. Because what did God do with Paul? He gave him a thorn. Did he invent the weakness? Like Paul was already weak. The thorn is the barrier, right? The thorn just accentuates the weakness that you and I already have. God's not making Paul weak. He's pointing it out. Spiritual power is found only in inadequacy. And it's ironic, but it's the moment that you believe that you're in your own power. The moment that you taste and think like, oh, maybe I am okay spiritually. It's gone. And so let's view our inadequacies, our weaknesses the right way. Let's look at our thorns as gifts. Let's understand our inadequacies

are training wheels for dependency. Your inadequacies are training wheels for dependency. What does God want from you? What does he want from you? He wants you to worship. He wants you to depend on him. Do you think he wants you like leading Billy Graham revivals if you think that's all on you? No. You'd be the worst person to lead the revival. By character. Like automatically. Who does God raise up throughout history? I mean, throughout history. Who does he raise up? He raises up people that don't look at the part. Right? And what about the people that do look the part? I'm thinking of King Saul right now. King Saul was like super tall, good looking. You know, I think he was like a head over everybody else. Right? He's, I mean, just a prominent, prominent guy who's left-handed because he's from the tribe of Benjamin. They were all left-handed. I'm being serious. He looked the part, but he didn't fit

because his character wasn't right. Who was the part? The short red hair guy. Who played the harp? Right? Your inadequacies are training wheels for dependency. God is much, much more concerned with your character and your heart than your fame or your follower count. Or even your knowledge. And secondly, just to look at it a different way, your thorns are the path to spiritual power.

Your thorns are actually the path to spiritual power. Identifying your inadequacies and combating them, growing in them, by leaning into that weakness. We'll talk about how in just a minute. Identifying those inadequacies and leaning into those inadequacies. What we do is we identify inadequacies and we think about how to marginalize them. How to put them over here. How to make sure not too many people can see them. How to not, excuse me, how to not ever bank on them.

That's what we do with our inadequacies, how to hide them. We wanna sweep them under the rug, but it's the path. God wants to move through you, not despite you. God wants to move through your inadequacies, through your weakness, not despite them. God's not looking at your weakness going, I don't know, I mean, I guess. I mean, maybe we can make this work, I don't know. He looks at your weakness and how many he looks his chops. I mean, he's ready. He's excited. Like I'm gonna ride that weakness all the way to glory. This is gonna be great. It's the total opposite of how we look at our own weakness. Because all we can see is our trembling legs, but we can't see the finish line. We can't see the request in the hill. Because we're just focused too much on what's going on with us. The Lord has a vision for your life. And in your life, he wants you to crush it in ministry.

I don't know if the Lord would put it that way, but I'm putting it that way this morning, to crush it in ministry, to invest in a spiritual family and to receive from that family. The Lord wants that for you. That's part of his vision for your life. The Lord wants you to grow in spiritual knowledge and confidence without being conceited. The Lord wants that for you. The Lord wants you serving within your gifts, together with your church family, with your church body, exercising those gifts in a way that doesn't lead to conceit, in a way that you are leaning into those weaknesses. The Lord wants you to disciple people in this exact same way. Leaning into your weaknesses and not just you leaning into yours, but you teaching another person how to lean into theirs. This is the Lord's vision for your life.

I don't need a crystal ball. I don't need anything to know that about you because I've read the Bible. And God's vision for your life is you leaning into that inadequacy and you growing in spiritual maturity and you actually kind of backing into major spiritual power and influence that you can wield for his glory. And I don't mean becoming a Christian celebrity. I don't mean followers on TikTok. I mean being big in the kingdom. Look, there's people you don't know that have lived and died. There's no record of them. But in the kingdom, they are moguls. In the kingdom, they are rich because they just gave their life in service of others toward the kingdom of God, amen? I'm not gonna tell that story. I was gonna tell a story and I thought, I'm gonna cry if I tell that story. I'm just kidding, I didn't think I was gonna cry.

Here's my question for your life, for God's vision for your life. Do you want that? You don't have to answer me now. You don't actually. Do you want it? If you do not want it, you got two causes. You got two options here. If you don't want it, number one, you don't think you could ever do it. And in that case, read the Bible and pray. It's the Lord's vision for your life. Jesus kind of doesn't care if you want it or not. I mean, he does, he cares. But like if you can't plan the whole thing out, you know what I'm saying? Like if you can't like, well, I don't know if I can, I don't know, like you start to worry about the logistics. And Jesus is like, it's fine, let's go. I'll tell you on the way, it'll be fine. Just follow me, okay? Like it's cool, just go.

And the other thing, maybe you hear all that and you're just not interested in doing that. And in that case, I would just tell you, look around. That's what we're about, man. That's what we do. That's who we are. The vision that the Lord has for us is a robust ministry leaning on him in our lives. Our weakness for direction and for spiritual power. So let's not get lost on how to start. In fact, let's start today. I want to help you. Now, I don't have some like secret key, okay? That's where the verses end, basically, from what we're preaching today. You can read 2 Corinthians 12, it's a great chapter, obviously, it's in the Bible. But I wanna just give you like just a few pro tips on leaning into that weakness. Not that I've perfected it at all. But I wanna challenge you, I'm gonna list four, and I wanna challenge you. I wanna challenge you to pick one. Pick one, seriously pick one that you're weak in.

Maybe pick one that you feel the most weak in, okay? And here's the four, I'm gonna go through each one of them, but here's the four. Pray out loud, read the Bible and understand it on your own. Share your testimony with other people. Share the gospel with people, okay? Pray out loud, read the Bible and understand it on your own. Share your testimony with others, share the gospel with people. Now, look, if you're really good at praying out loud, but you're afraid of the other three, don't say the first one is what you're gonna work on. That's cheating, don't do that. Some of you, that's where you need to start, it's fine. Okay, if you're gonna pray out loud, here's my encouragement to you. And this is kind of recurring in our weak-minded series,

W-E-E-K-minded, weak-minded. If you're gonna pray out loud, you need to start by praying out loud. Yeah, I know. It's like I said, pro tips here. Pray out loud by yourself for two weeks. Pray out loud by yourself for two weeks. You're like, I'm gonna feel weird, yep. You know why you feel weird? Because you're weak at it. Because you feel dumb. That's why you don't pray out loud. You feel like you're going to say something that you don't wanna say, and that you're going to look dumb. You're worrying about what other people are thinking about whatever you're saying. So eliminate that variable, and just pray out loud by yourself.

Here's the reality. God wants to commune with you, and it doesn't take you praying out loud to do that. However, it's probably a good move for you to begin to pray out loud. Okay, it's not like praying out loud is better than praying in total silence, but sometimes praying out loud helps you work things out in a different way. I'll just say that. I would encourage anybody that I know to learn how to pray out loud. Now, it doesn't mean you need the first one to pray out loud every time. Don't be that guy. That's not what I'm asking you to do. I'm asking you to pray out loud by yourself for two weeks, and it could be, I mean, it could be two sentences. It doesn't matter.

After you have done that for two weeks, here's leaning into the weakness. You're gonna pray with another person out loud. One, one person. Find somebody that you trust, okay? Somebody that you trust, and you can look them dead in the eye and be like, if you make fun of me for this, we are not friends anymore. Okay, if you need to have that talk with them before, then that's fine. You might need to reconsider your friends, but just have the talk with them, and just say, look, don't be dumb here, okay? I'm being really vulnerable. Don't step on me, okay?

Pray with that other person. As you continue to do that, by the way, if you are married or dating, it's a good idea to pray out loud with your, significant other, your spouse or boyfriend, girlfriend. It's just helpful to do that, so this might be just a good jumpstart for that anyway. Pray with that other person for another two weeks, and then keep leaning into the weakness and adding another person. Add one more person at a time. Some of you are extreme introverts, and you got like three friends total, and that's fine. I don't hate you. I'm not even making fun of you. My wife is that way, okay? She's an introvert. She has like these people that she loves a whole lot, and she's just not, you know, she loves these people a whole lot. And so she's gonna wanna pray with those people. Okay, that's great, right, that's fine. If you're like me and like a stranger or your best friend or something, then great.

Pray with anybody. You probably don't have the problem of praying out loud. Anyway, pray out loud. That's where some of you need to start. Second, read the Bible and understand it on your own. Read the Bible and understand it on your own. And I realize some of you, you're gonna look at me like I got three heads. Look, it's okay if you can't preach a sermon off of it. That's not what we're talking about. Reading the Bible and understanding it on your own is a basic skill that you need as a believer, period. You can't always get spoon fed. It's okay to start there. It's okay, that's fine. I don't wanna knock anybody for doing it. But if it's your fifth year and you're still doing it, I'm like, hey, probably time to read the Bible and understand it on your own, okay? Here's how.

And I would say this specifically. Don't, don't, don't. And there's lots of good books out there. Don't jump into a book that tells you how to do it and do what the book says. Don't do that. Please don't do that. They're good books. Trust me, they're good. I don't hate them, but that's not my encouragement. My encouragement goes straight to the Bible. It's just better. It's not demonic to do it a different way, okay? Don't hear me saying that. It's just, that's not my encouragement this morning. I want you, and it's gonna feel funny at first, remember, we're leaning into weakness, so it's going to feel funny. Okay. Start by reading one verse, and as you read, ask Jesus, or before you read, ask Jesus to illuminate that verse. Just, Jesus, help me understand this verse that I'm gonna read. And then I want you to write down 10 things that you see in that verse. 10 observations.

I don't care what they are. It could be, this is Jesus talking, and that's one observation. That's cool, good, that's one of your 10. Right, now get nine more, okay? Make 10 observations about one verse. That's it. Write that down. Do that for two weeks. Don't do the same verse. That's actually super hard to do the same verse, because then you've got 140 observations all in one verse.

Don't do that. Pick a different verse. You can just go through a whole book if you want to. But it doesn't even matter if you jump around. If you want to get the top 10 list of most famous Christian verses ever, fine. It's the Bible. Who's complaining? I'm not. Make 10 observations about that. Do that for two weeks. After two weeks, I want you to continue to read and pray, and then I want you to write 20 observations. Don't be intimidated. It's not that hard. 20 observations. On one verse, that's important. In the subsequent weeks, so another two weeks, maybe another month, whatever, either add a verse or add an observation. In other words, oh, sorry, observations, either say I'm gonna read two verses and make 20 observations about them, or I'm gonna read one verse, I'm gonna make 30 observations about them. Okay? However you need to go. However you need to do that.

Here's what I guarantee it'll change how you read the Bible. I guarantee it. There's no way that you do that exercise. There's no way that you're praying to your Creator God, and you're saying, Lord, I want to understand the Bible, and you actually read the Bible, and you're making observations on it, and God's not gonna answer that prayer. There's no way that's not, there's no way. If you mean the prayer, and you start reading, Lord, I want to understand this, man, watch the fire fall. It's gonna be great. Read the Bible, understand it on your own. Number three, sharing your testimony with others. Okay, if this is you, you have a little exercise to do before you jump into this, and this is your exercise. You have to answer a question. It's a hard question, but it's a simple question. Here's the question. Why, and you can underline why like 40 times, why did you become a Christian?

Answer nothing else about becoming a Christian. Not how, not how old you were, not where you were, not what you were feeling like, not who the pastor was, not who the podcast was, not nothing, not nothing, not your circumstance. It doesn't matter if it was a VBS, or you walked an aisle, or whatever, whatever kind of flower thing you want to put on that, that's fine, all of that is verboten. Don't do that, just answer why.

It's harder than you think. Essentially, your answer's going to be, I met Jesus because, not when, not how, not logistics, don't do that, why? WHY, okay, that's your homework. And you will start by answering that question in one sentence. Here's a real fun game. If, yeah, that's fun. If you want to do this with somebody else, you both try to answer the question, and then you take turns delivering the answer to one another, and if the other one says anything about how old they were, or any circumstances like that, you actually, you get buzzers out, right? And you buzz each other, okay? Just be like bam, you can't do that. No, no, no, no, it's annoying, I know, but it's a good way to really shape that thing down. You're answering why. Here's my why, I'll tell you.

I met Jesus because I was a liar, and I saw that Jesus wanted me to become a truth teller. I met Jesus and he said, you're a liar, and I want you to be a truth teller. Follow me, okay? That's it, that's my testimony, right? There's definitely some holes to fill in, I understand. That's kind of the point, really. But it doesn't have to be that complicated. It can just be that. Has to be real, it's pretty real for me, tender moment for me, when I met the Lord, what a good day.

But that's all that happened. What's your testimony? You're gonna start by answering that question in one sentence, and you're gonna share that answer with somebody that you trust, and you're gonna share that answer multiple times a week, or multiple times over two weeks, excuse me. So share that answer multiple times, two weeks, same person, okay? That person needs to be annoyed that you are sharing your testimony yet again. Okay, that's kind of the goal, right? Maybe you get a really patient person, it won't happen, I don't know. But share your testimony multiple times over two weeks,

after two weeks, share it with somebody that you know is not a Christian. It can be somebody that you know and trust, share it with somebody that you know is not a Christian. You can even say, like, I'm trying to do this stupid thing my pastor told me to do, because I'm trying to lean into the weakness, and here's my testimony, I have to share my testimony with somebody who is not a Christian. You're not a Christian, we know this. Here's my testimony. You don't have to get feedback, you don't have to write it down, you don't have nothing. Just share your testimony with somebody who's not a Christian. After that, make it a goal to share your testimony conversationally, once a week, once every other week, just as it comes up, and you're praying for those opportunities, right? It's a good track. In our life groups, our life groups are kind of one-on-one or one-on-two discipleship intensives,

and we do this as part of our life group training, right? So we wanna help people grow in ministry confidence, the only way that you do that, the only way you grow in ministry confidence is that you face things that you think you are weak in, and you lean into that, and this is one of those things. Share your testimony with other people. You'd be surprised how many people are interested to hear your testimony, I think. Lastly, share the gospel with people. We encourage something called Three Circles. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, perfect, a perfect representation of sharing the gospel or representation of the gospel, but Three Circles, and you can look it up. It's actually, there's a link on our website. You can find it.

You can just ask somebody about a lot of people who know about Three Circles here. You're essentially drawing Three Circles as like a diagram, and you're helping people understand what the gospel is through this diagram. It sounds super complicated. It's not. It's actually super easy, which is why we use it a lot. And so you're gonna start by learning Three Circles, and you're going to share it with somebody that you trust multiple times over two weeks. So this is the same kind of frequency as sharing your testimony, right? Except instead of asking why I became a Christian, you're saying, what are Three Circles? I need to learn Three Circles. And you're gonna present it over and over again, with somebody that you trust multiple times over two weeks. And then just like that, after two weeks, you're gonna share it with somebody that you know is not a Christian.

And again, you can play it off and say like, hey, I'm doing this thing that my pastor told me to do. And I need to share Three Circles with somebody that I know is not a Christian. You're not a Christian. I mean, don't out them. If you don't know if they're not a Christian, you could say, I don't know if you're a Christian. It's fine. It's whatever. I'm not trying to, you know, you don't need to label your friends right in front of them. But if you're not sure they're a Christian, you're like, I'm not sure you're a Christian. So you qualify. I'm just trying to do this thing for church. It's easy.

It's still awkward. It's still hard, yes. But there are ways to push through into the weakness. In the next following weeks, you're gonna be praying. You're gonna be looking for opportunities to share the gospel. You got a goal to share the gospel with somebody every two weeks. Sharing the gospel with people, right? Help people understand the gospel. You might think to yourself, no, a lot of people know what the gospel is. But I swear to you, I have shared the gospel with people before in Crowley, Texas. And I said gospel and they had no idea what I meant. Zero. I said Jesus. They knew who Jesus was, sort of. But every time I talked to them about Jesus, they would repeat the same thing back to me, but put church in where Jesus was. And I was like, I think we have a failure to communicate. And so I said, have you ever heard of the gospel? And she said, no.

I do not know what you mean by that. A very honest conversation. And it was actually a really good conversation. She did not accept the gospel right then, but I did explain it to her. Look, you are not in charge of making people become Christians. As soon as you believe that, as soon as you believe that, sometimes the worst thing that can happen to you is somebody becomes a Christian.

Because you think you did it. I mean, it's never bad when somebody becomes a Christian. I'm just saying for you, in your own heart, it's bad. Lean into your weakness. I'm gonna call Joseph back up. And I just wanna leave you with a couple of questions. I think that there's probably, there's probably some things that are keeping you from doing one of those four things. Maybe kind of some major, major insecurity that you have. And I know the game. I know the game.

Sometimes it's easy to think through like, oh, well, I can't read the Bible and understand it on my own. So I'm just gonna let the spiritual people in my life do that for me. And it feels like humility. It feels like you're being like gracious or you're being somehow super spiritual on that front. And you are not, you're being a coward. And you don't need to do that. You don't need to be afraid.

Look, I have insecurities too. In fact, everybody in here, if I said, hey, do you have insecurity? We'd all raise our hands. And if you did not raise your hand, you would be a liar. You'd have a different problem. We all have those kinds of insecurities. It's helpful for us to say that out loud. It's helpful for us to work on those insecurities, face them and ask the Lord because, because, because Christian maturity is about dependence. It's not about great big showy gifts.

People that can preach in front of somebody aren't more spiritually mature than people that cannot. It's not true. It seems true though. It feels true, but it's not. Wherever you are, whatever gifting you have, whatever insecurities you have, I want you to know deeply from the bottom of my heart, I am glad you have that insecurity because you can use it for it to be a pathway to true spiritual power. If you're really, really conscientious about studying the Bible and understanding it on your own, if you really believe there's no way that you could do that, man, you do what I told you to do and lean into that insecurity, lean into what the Lord's telling you, lean into his trust and I promise he will not fail you. We can sing about Lord not failing us all day long, but how do you know he's not failing you unless you're going to him with something that you're weak on and you're saying,

I'm weak, I'm gonna look dumb. I need you to catch me, but I'm going off the cliff of the insecurity. You better catch me or you better make me fly, but I'm jumping, man, jump. When you are weak, then you are strong. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this morning. Thank you for our weakness. Thank you for the thorns that we have, how they are training wheels to depend on you. Pray that you would help us to understand our own lies,

our own set of kind of false ideas that we have surrounding our own weakness and how sometimes they cover our fear and our cowardice. Lord, give us the strength to push through that. Give us encouragement. Help us to be encouraged by other people. Lord, I pray for everybody in here that is dealing with it, that has a plan this week to start something new. I pray that you would give them three people that would encourage them this week to do what they need to do, that you would find ways to lift these people through the insecurity, to face the weakness. Help us all to do this, but give us encouragers. Give us people around us this week to help us do it.

Lord, we trust you, even in and especially in our weakness. That's your name that we pray, amen.