God has chosen to operate in His weakness. The sin of man could be addressed in power. Instead, He forgives and shows mercy. (2 Corinthians 13:4)

Speaker(s): Thomas Schaller, Michel Texier, John Herb
Sermon 12199
6:30 PM on 11/14/2021

P. Schaller –

We’ve been blessed this week to have P. Matti here from the
Middle East. It’s been great. Thanks, pastor. Thanks for coming and
being the man of God. Wow. It’s been great. Really. Then P. Texier
from Paris has been with us for the week. Thank you, pastor. Wow.

These are our friends, real deep friends in Christ. It’s like amazing. We
have P. John Herb from Carlisle, Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania right
over here. Yes. And our affiliation is a spiritual one where we trust each
other, pray for each other, hold each other accountable and ask
questions in a loving way in humility in fellowship gathering together.
We’re going to be gathering in Europe, Lord willing, in Poland in March.
Write that down on your calendar. Find out about it and go online and
look on it and think about it and pray about it. We’ve been two years, is
it? With covid. February is two years. We haven’t had Eurocon.

We tried. Oh, did we try! We tried. We had conferences. We had a non-
conference, remember? Yeah, we canceled it and then we had it anyway. God has blessed us. We got a deck out there because of covid! That’s our covid deck out there. We’ve got a roof top position over here. We got a
banister up there with two by fours. Didn’t the I.T. and A.V. Department
do a great job during this time? Man! Paul Nye and the team. Wow!
What a great job and all of the prayers that God has answered and what
he’s done for us. It’s been great. We had a great sermon this morning. I was shocked
how good it was! It was awesome.

It was this morning at 9 and then at 11. The Lord is pouring it on. I know Fed Hill with Justin, I talked to him
on the phone and they just had a great morning. I believe P. Wright did
in Havre de Grace. Harbor of Mercy. I’ve been hanging around P.
Texier! Silver Spring and just the Spirit in our country turning people to
Christ. This is our desire. We pray for P. Herb and his family and team
and the church up there. Just welcome him as he comes and brings
greetings to us.

P. Herb –

Good evening. It’s great to be here from Boiling Spring. The
team that came with me, would you stand really quickly back there.
(He’s naming people). It’s great being here. We had a great time last
weekend in Clearwater. The messages were so fresh and so exciting.
We were just really blessed down there. Then we came back.
Yesterday, we had the opportunity to go to Edgewood. We were with P.
Bryson and Adrianne there.

We were able to do some soul winning and had just a really great time there. What a beautiful Body they have
there. We are just really enjoying, and one of the things that has really
been laid on our hearts is to have people come and be in our ministry.
We’ve had different pastors. P. Muhib has been up and others. P.
Dennis White. P. Pete, I see you over there. Hey, P. Pete! That’s my
family now. I have to give you a little shout out. They have been up and
we really just have a good time fellowshiping around the Word of God
and staying connected to you here. We are so thankful for the ministry
here in Baltimore because it’s an encouragement to us.

You’re never supposed to say it’s a small ministry, but when you come from a smaller
ministry, and you get so encouraged when you come to Baltimore and
when people come and they share the Word of God. There’s P. Bill
Alexson. Hi, P. Bill! He was with us in Clearwater, too. We had a great time with him doing a rap with him
one evening. Greetings from Boiling Springs. Keep us in your prayers.
We are continuing to grow. We just had some new visitors today.
Amazingly enough, we had somebody that came today to service who
received a tract from our vacation Bible school back in July, and they
just came today and visited. It’s amazing to me.

They find a tract in their door and they hold onto it since July and they show up in November for
service and there they are. Never be afraid of leaving a tract in a door,
right? That will speak to somebody’s hearts. Just thank you for your love
and your prayers. We pray for you guys and we are so thankful for you
here in Baltimore.

P. Texier –

Let’s pray (Prayer). I’d like to read a verse with you tonight.
It’s 1 Corinthians 1:25. What is the weakness of God? It’s a surprising
expression. Christianity is the only religion where we can speak about
the weakness of God. Of course we know that God is powerful. He is
omnipotent and at the same time he’s weak because it’s written. But
what is the weakness of God? The meditation I would like to bring forth
comes from a question that was asked to P. Stevens when he was in
France some time ago. Some one asked him the question, what is the
weakness of God? And he answered that the weakness of God is found
in his nature.

Why is it found in his nature? We know that God is holy.
We know that God is just. And we know that God is love. But because
of sin, God had a problem to be able to continue to love us. Because
our sin demanded justice to protect his holiness. Because God is holy,
he cannot tolerate sin; therefore, he is obligated to judge sin. And it’s
because in Jesus Christ God made himself weak. It’s because of that
that the judgment was able to come about.

When Jesus was on the earth, he said for example to Pilate, I could call a myriad of angels to
deliver me. However, he didn’t do it. He chose to remain weak. When
he was on the cross, and when someone said at the foot of the cross, if
you are the son of God, deliver yourself. But he chose not to deliver
himself. He chose to remain weak in pain and in receiving the judgment
for our sin. And even though Peter and others betrayed him and turned
away from him, he chose the role as taking on the weaker member not
to take revenge, not to cause justice to be enacted. In reality, when we
chose to forgive someone, we must chose to be weak. Because when
someone hurts us, they are guilty.

We could judge them. We could demand justice, but we will choose to be weak. We will choose to lose
even though we could win. And in this weakness, the character of God
is manifested. The nature of God is manifested. Joseph was weak
before his brothers. He was prime minister in Egypt. He had the power
with him. He had justice with him. He had the rights on his side. In a
way, he was holy. He had done no fault toward his brothers because he
could love them, but in order to be able to love them, he made himself
weak. We see the same thing with David towards Saul.

David was in the right. He could have demanded justice himself but he continued to
serve. He accepted losing. He accepted having to escape. He accepted
taking the place of the guilty one. He accepted solitude. He accepted
caves. He made himself weak to manifest the character of God. You
know, in 1 Corinthians 13:4, it is written for he was crucified in weakness. He
was crucified in weakness or because of weakness. A weakness that he
chose. But he lives by the power of God. By the power of God, God
brings forth justice and he rose from the dead. When we accept the
weakness of God, let us be sure that there will be the power of God with
us. The power of God in adversity.

The power of God in our despair. The power of God in darkness. Because we are more than conquerors
by he who loves us. May God bless you.

P. Schaller –

That was so good, wasn’t it. Let’s repeat it. We’ll repeat it
and finish our meeting within ten minutes probably. Let’s repeat that
message. Did you hear it? How many of you understand French? Okay.
You got it? How about the others? Did you get it? That was awesome.
I’m going to repeat it in a minute, but you repeat it to your neighbor for a
minute. What did P. Texier just say? That was incredible. I loved it.
Thank you, pastor. That was amazing. Let’s go to that 2 Corinthians 13:4.
Pastor mentioned, he taught just now that God’s weakness, God is
weak, but in which way? He was crucified in weakness, 2 Corinthians 13:4. he
mentioned that in our religion, God is weak.

That he can afford to be weak because he actually is God. He could say I forgive you. He said
when you ask for forgiveness or when you give forgiveness – I forgive
you – you are actually showing weakness. I forgive you. I don’t have to
be right. I don’t have to be stronger than you. I don’t have to be
important. I don’t have to win an argument. How about this one: I’m the
head of the house, but I don’t have to be the head of the house because
actually I am the head of the house because I walk with God. And I can
love you as being lower by way of this weakness.

I can say to my wife, I’m sorry. Why don’t we practice that for a minute? Turn to your
neighbor and say, I’m sorry. Is it hard to say I’m sorry. To your neighbor,
it’s easy. P. Renaldo, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. How about this one? We
made mention of it in the last week or two when Cain killed Abel and
God spoke to Cain. He said why are you angry? Actually, before he
killed him, I believe. Why are you angry? and sin is crouching at the door
and if you do well, then you will have authority, but if not, then that sin
will have authority over you. How amazing it is for us to be weak and yet
strong because of God. And God could have killed Cain.

Let me say something about that. If Cain murdered his brother and you were God,
what would you do to Cain? If I was God, I would murder Cain because
an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I would kill Cain. But what did God
do with Cain? He protected him. He spoke to him. Cain lived. Why did
God do that? Why didn’t God judge Cain? Because in a way – there’s a
couple reasons – but one of them is that God is weak on purpose and
he says I’m not going to judge him now. I’m going to give him time to get
saved. I’m going to give him time to live.

By the way, if God was killing everybody that would kill, then the population of the earth would be
different cause Cain wouldn’t have a family. God did not kill Cain so
Cain could actually have a family and the population of the earth would
grow cause maybe his son would not be a murderer. Maybe his son
would become a saint. Isn’t that interesting? You don’t know the way of
God. You and I don’t understand how he works, how gracious he is,
how patient he is with the wicked. That was the message this morning
in Matthew 5:44. The rain falls on the just and the unjust, and the sun shines
on the just and the unjust. We are in a world that there is evil in the
world and he protects us.

He helps us. He teaches us. We are being trained to be like God. Amazing. Matthew 5:48, to be like our heavenly
Father. You see, I don’t know if you understand me. Here’s Cain and
he lives a long time. Ecclesiastes 8. The judgment isn’t executed speedily. Also,
it’s Psalm 50. How many things you have done that could have, that
God could have judged quickly but he didn’t. He gave you months. He
gave you years. He gave you a long time. How much grace have we received from God, and how about this world? How many criminals, how many ungodly people are alive and living life? How about it? It’s
amazing. God in a sense is weak.

When I heard P. Texier say this, it touched my heart cause I believe exactly what he said. Jesus could
have called 10,000 angels but he didn’t cause he was crucified – where
is the verse? 2 Corinthians 13:4 Crucified in weakness. Pontius Pilate, you look
like you are in charge, but actually I’m in charge because I am God. But
I’m going to do something and everybody that sees me and knows me
will understand me that I am God crucified in weakness because this is
the way I roll. This is the way I am. I’m so patient with the ungodly. I’m
so gracious and kind to people.

I am a forgiving God. I am a weak God, but in that weakness, he has caught the whole world in a way. All of our
attention is on him at the cross. We are fascinated by him. We are
fascinated by that kind of power that is able to say I love you. Justice
would say you are judged and you are guilty of sin and you go to hell.
But love says I am here to save you. I am showing you my love in my
weakness cause in my weakness, my weakness is actually stronger
than men. I’m actually stronger than you guys. You can’t do this. I can. I
can take a beating and say, I forgive you.

I can be abused. I can be hurt, but come back and say I am for you and not against you. A sinner
taking Christ and slaying him and then Christ saying three days later,
peace be unto you. I am for you and not against you. I forgive you. I
love you. I am God. It’s amazing, isn’t it? This is just beautiful. So, that’s
it. That’s our message tonight. Thank you, P. Texier for that message.
That was awesome. I feel like preaching for an hour, but I think we got
it. I think we got it. Could we look at it one more time? Just look at it one
more time. 1 Corinthians 1:25, you guys are awesome. Just to repeat it. It’s
awesome. I Corinthians 1:25, what does it mean?

Plato, Socrates, three hundred years before Christ with their discourses, philosophy, the
volumes, the articulation, the way of thinking about life, the reasoning.
All of it very sophisticated. Look at Jesus and what do you have there
on the cross? Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Okay.
Explain that. No explanation. Just a mangled, mutilated body on a
cross. It’s foolishness to the Greeks but to us, it’s wisdom. It’s weakness
to the Jews cause when they came out of Egypt, they came through the
Red Sea. When Elijah prayed, the fire came down and the Jews wanted
the power but they got this weakness. But that weakness is power and
that foolishness is wisdom.

Amen.

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