LIE: The powerless are insignificant

Lie:      The powerless are insignificant.

Truth: The powerless, teamed with God, overcome the powerful.

I’m sure that the giant Goliath mistakenly believed this same lie too as he sized up David. Goliath never considered that the reverse might be true. He couldn’t imagine that, in five minutes he would be dead. But such are the exploits of God who turns the tables on the proud.

Or consider Gideon who, after losing 22,000 men to cowardice, and then another 9,700 men to a strange divine test,[1] routed the multitudinous Midianites with 300 men.

And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’” — Judges 7:2

This principle is true for numbers of people, but also in other ways. Consider Jesus’ saying of the mustard seed. God explained it like this:

And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” — Luke 17:5–6

Christ answered the disciples’ request for more faith with the remarkably strange saying that ‘mustard seed-like faith’ would be more than enough. But for too long we’ve misunderstood these words, thinking that the Lord is only talking about the size of the seed. Indeed some translations insert the phrase ‘as small as’ or ‘the size of,’ but this phrase is simply not in the original text. It simply says: “If you have faith as a mustard seed . . .”[2]

The mustard seed speaks of at least five aspects of faith:

Size. Yes the Lord is highlighting the mustard seed’s smallness – it being one of the smallest seeds, averaging about 1–2 millimeters in diameter. And its smallness hints at its weakness. This seed more than any other is likely to get lost, crushed or forgotten. But perhaps it’s the relative size of the seed (our faith) compared to its object (God) that is Christ’s point.

Persistence. The fact that faith is likened to a seed, also hints that, although the seed is small and apparently weak, it can still survive untold hardships, even hundreds of years and yet maintain its potency.

From Wikipedia:

The oldest viable carbon-14-dated seed that has grown into a plant was a Judean date palm seed about 2,000 years old, recovered from excavations at Herod the Great’s palace on Masada in Israel. It was germinated in 2005.[3]

Impossibility/improbability. How could an oak tree emerge from an acorn? a pine tree from a pine cone? an apple tree bearing many apples from a single seed buried inside one of its apples? If these things were not so familiar they would be simply inconceivably impossible. Yet it’s true. Seeds are amazing; they are daily reminders that God loves to do the improbable, even the impossible through our little mustard-seed faith.

Potency. A single seed holds the power to recreate itself many times over – hundreds, even thousands of times. Just when you think this humble, little seed can only barely survive, given the right conditions, it reproduces at an amazing rate. So our faith, even when the way seems impossible, can not only just get by, but can actually produce much fruit.

Which brings me to the fifth point:

Potential. I think this more than anything is what the Lord is trying to get at. The fact that the Lord likens faith to a seed – any seed for that matter – is significant. A seed’s value is not in its present state, but in its potential. Grass seed will do you little good sitting on a shelf, but scatter it on the ground and it will eventually create a lush carpet to walk on.

It is faith’s silent quality, it’s well-hidden potential, that packs the biggest punch. We too easily forget that it’s our faith – our trust and confidence in God and his all-sufficient power – that really makes the difference in all of life.

Like the lowly seed, we can expect our faith to be both weak and strong at the same time. God actually seeks out the weak, the neglected, the forgotten, the passed-over to better show his power. He told Israel that:

The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples. — Deuteronomy 7:7

Or take Paul’s entire second letter to the Corinthian church. This letter reveals how the other so-called credentialed apostles had been bad-mouthing and trying to discredit Paul, telling the Corinthian church to dismiss him.[4] Paul not only admitted that he had endured all kinds of suffering, appearing to be weak and an uncredentialed apostle (whatever that meant), but he actually boasted in his apparent weakness and sufferings because through them the power of God could be released.

Since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you. For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you. — 2 Corinthians 13:3–4

This was true for Paul personally:

And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And 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 Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. — 2 Corinthians 12:7–10 [emphasis added]

But finally we come to the Person who, more than any other, showed us the truth of strength in weakness. We come to Christ himself and the delicious irony that he triumphed in the cross, the very symbol of Rome’s power.

having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.[5] — Colossians 2:14–15

The cross – the instrument of his destruction and sign of his powerlessness – was the very thing he used to overcome sin and evil. We are now called to take on the same mind, the same mentality.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. — Philippians 2:5–11

Jesus took on this weakness, but not simply for the sake of weakness, but for love. And because in love he humbled himself, God lifted him up. This is indeed how we too will overcome: God sets us free from the fear of man who can only kill the body, but cannot touch the soul.

So it’s not simply that weakness overcomes strength. It’s that, those who choose to love in the name of Christ, despite the fact that it may make us vulnerable, it is those who overcome, even if it means that they overcome by dying. This is the mind of Christ. See also: Lie: I am defeated, part 1 and part 2.

It’s obvious but worth mentioning that we know all this to be true because of the overwhelming advantage we have of being aligned with and empowered by God himself. He can never lose.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. — Romans 8:35–37

See also the introduction to this category: Lies about self-security.

[1] Judges 7:3–8

[2] Compare also Matthew 17:20

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed

[4] 2 Corinthians 10:7–11

[5] that is, in the cross.