Bill Johnson - How God's Strength Is Going to Show Up in Your Weakness
What do you do when it doesn’t work? What do you do when you suffer personal loss instead of the triumph you anticipated your whole life? That’s the moment where destinies are decided, because in the moment of weakness, in the moment of brokenness, to still say yes opens the opportunity for God to say yes. In His yes, there is a more complete demonstration of the power of the Gospel. In 2 Corinthians 12, verse 9, you’ll recognize the first part of the verse: He said to me, «My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.» Therefore, most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of God may rest upon me. I’m going to boast in weakness so that the power of God will rest upon me.
Verse 10: I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, and in distresses for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, I am strong. I don’t know if this is making sense to you or not. Let me illustrate it this way: there are times when the power of God is displayed because of the aggressive obedience of the servants of the Lord. I’ve seen moments where friends of mine have aggressively stepped into a place; in fact, I have one friend who preached to an entire crowd and told them, «If this blind person is not healed, I will renounce this gospel.» Thankfully, his whole team was gasping, «Oh no!» And the blind eyes opened. But there are times when that aggressive faith is powerful. I was with Mario, in fact he was here at Beth many years ago. Mario Murillo had this lady stand up in the center aisle and said, «Stand up!» She stood up, and he said, «You have a tumor right here that you haven’t even told your husband.» Then he declared that the tumor just disappeared. She dropped to the ground.
Sometimes there is this display of the Gospel, this aggressive display of faith, and I like that. But this power of God is kind of like two-part epoxy; when the two are brought together, there’s an exponential increase in the demonstration of power. The second part comes in the strangest way; it comes in weakness. You can only discover the second demonstration of power by embracing loss, by acknowledging that this didn’t work out the way you planned. This disappointment will forever mark your life. This is a moment of weakness. It’s not that problems attract power; it’s that problems create the opportunity for surrender that attracts power. There is a humility that comes into the heart of a person facing these unanswered prayers, these crises, these dilemmas. If you go low enough and keep your heart connected to the One, see, the Gospel is not redefined by our experience. The nature of God is not redefined by our experiences, or lack thereof. He is absolute, and in this loss, disappointment, and the stuff that every one of us goes through—believe me, I have the stories and testimonies; I don’t lack there—but the ones that stick the most are the losses. Those moments are invitations to discover power on another level.
This time, son, you are going to access the power of the Gospel through weakness. It’s embracing that which didn’t work. It’s embracing the moment that seemed to backfire; embrace the moment when you are criticized, mocked, written about, or preached against. You fill in the blanks for how it works in your world. But the fact that I took a stand for the Gospel and it didn’t work out as I thought, is that the end of the story? No, it’s the back door to the throne room where great power is demonstrated. It’s almost like this isn’t in scripture, but it’s a conclusion from it: the Lord is saying, «If you can trust me with loss, I can trust you with gain. If you can trust me with your weakest moments, I can trust you with demonstrations of power. I can trust you with an increase in that which brings breakthrough.»
See, this school that we are all in, once you said yes to Jesus, you got placed into school. And this school is about aggressive faith; it’s about hearing from God, declaring the Word of God, and proclaiming boldly this Gospel. But it’s also, what do you do when it doesn’t work? What do you do when you suffer personal loss instead of the triumph you anticipated your whole life? That’s the moment right there, and it’s like, that is the moment where destinies are decided. Because in the moment of weakness, to still say yes opens the opportunity for God to say yes. In His yes, there is a more complete demonstration of the power of the Gospel. I believe that’s what the Lord’s looking for from you and from me.
We just had a testimony time earlier this morning in our staff prayer gathering, and it was extraordinary. The stories again from this past week, the miracles that have happened, made me sometimes pinch myself in a staff gathering as I hear stories of miracle after miracle. I never get tired of them, and I even like hearing them when I suffered loss. I want to make sure that my compass is still due north. I want to ensure that my heart is calibrated to His nature, His covenant, and His promise, and it doesn’t get twisted because of experience or lack of experience. I’m accountable for that; I’m accountable to protect this priceless gift called the Gospel.
Paul takes this group of people through this journey, telling them, «Listen, I came to you in a specific way.» I don’t know any other time where he came that way, without the brilliant stories or the impressive credentials he could have shared. He could have impressed people with his thoughts and concepts; he is like the genius of geniuses, believe me. But he chose to come in a way that could be seen as an experiment, as he made room for God. When you have that moment of loss or pain, that moment of weakness, when He shows up, nobody will give you credit—only God gets the credit, because they recognize the pain and loss, but they also recognize that you made room. That’s what I feel we do; we make room in our time, with our words, our expectations, our prayers, everything. We create room for God to show up and do what only He can do.
The moment most of us fear in life—the moment where you feel like you have nothing, where your loss reduces you—is actually what Paul said he would celebrate. Life is filled with choices; every day brings choices. But sometimes, the kingdom shows up in the most unusual ways. The reality of God’s dominion becomes manifest when we make the most unconventional choice, and that is to celebrate weakness, to grab the moment of loss and say, «God, wow, this is going to turn out so good, and I won’t be able to take any credit for what’s about to happen.»
See, there’s something about grabbing these moments as part of our yes. All of us experience them; many people try to manage them, others deny or ignore them. But to embrace them in your yes, to embrace them in your surrender is an unusual form of weakness. You just come in low, and in that place of absolute surrender, you become the person He can entrust with greater power. We’re not looking for power to be entertained. It’s not like I need another notch in my Bible. To be honest, I feel like I’m in debt; I feel like I owe Him. He commanded me to walk in the power of the Gospel. If it’s not happening, the problem is not with Him; He’s not the problem. The shortage is not on His end of the equation; it’s either truth or it’s not. We should figure out something else to do with our lives, but if it’s the truth, then we make every necessary adjustment for this Gospel to be demonstrated in the same way it was through Jesus’s mouth. I see glimpses, I taste, I celebrate, and I want more. I suffer loss; I have pain; I have things that don’t work. That two-part epoxy is the second part of power about to be inserted into my life if I grab the hard parts and ensure that I surrender those too. I surrender them in hope, believing God will receive a lot of glory out of this one. He will receive a lot of glory because this is part of the offering; this is part of my yes.
I don’t have the luxury of choosing when to give thanks; I have the responsibility to give Him a place to demonstrate who He is. Sometimes that means accepting that the open door is your own son walking out of the room unhealed. Each one of these moments is an invitation to give. They serve as a gift, an offering, knowing His way and His timing. This Gospel must be preached with power; it is not optional. For that to be done well, He’s got to have their heart stuff too.