Strength in Weakness: The Fellowship of the Withered Hand

Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with this shriveled hand, get up and stand now in the ancient world if you in a synagogue and you had a shed hand the last thing in the world that you would want would be for other people to see it this man was apparently a person of Faith he had I am sure prayed and asked God for healing for that hand there are stories in the Hebrew scriptures in the Old Testament of God bringing healing but it never happened for this guy. [00:03:12]

He does not ask you just to do what you can what any human being in Human self-sufficiency is capable of doing he asks you to do the very thing that you cannot do to forgive the person that you cannot forgive to be the kind of friend the kind of man the kind of woman to correct the kind of fault that is beyond your ability to live beyond your anxiety or beyond your depression or whatever it is do what you cannot do. [00:05:00]

People began to do what the man in the story did they began to stand up and confess their inadequacies and their weaknesses and their faults and they talked about being jealous of one another's churches or one another's families or one another's gifts or one another Ministries they talked about the fear what they had lost they began to weep now Paul didn't ask them to do any of these things. [00:05:39]

There is a Transcendent power that took place that fell on those of us who were in that room and it was not about human giftedness and that is The Fellowship of the withered hand and because of that there was a kind of um healing and a kind of encouraging and a kind of strengthening and a kind of community that happened and what was remarkable is it's a story that happened 2,000 years earlier. [00:06:40]

When that man was in the presence of Jesus and he did the very thing he did not want to do he exposed that of which he was most ashamed most defeated felt most inadequate most weak and all of a sudden he was given power and then 2,000 years later in Ethiopia it happened again that is The Fellowship of the withered hand when we meet and instead of pretending and yep I'm okay and my life is basically fine. [00:07:12]

The Fellowship of the withered hand is not a place where we gather together to be defined by our weaknesses or wounds people think about that sometimes I know of a church that was wonderful when it came to inviting people just to come in and share their wounds it was called Church of the open door people would sometimes nickname a church of the open sore and there are folks where they want go through life just being thought of as victims or living in self-pity. [00:08:06]

We are not meant to live ultimately just in the limitation of our weakness we are called to live in the reality of his strength Jesus of course uh in this story is engaging in an act of great courage in fact when it is done we're told the Pharisees and the herodians two people that had always hated each other the herodians worked with Herod they collaborated with the Romans the Pharisees hated those guys but they banded together to see how they could kill Jesus. [00:08:37]

It's an act of great courage and great strength and we're called to that so we're going to walk together on this journey there's a book that's been very helpful to me it's a very dense book for me wandering in darkness written by a philosopher elanar stump and she's agreed to be interviewed as part of this there's another wonderful thinker writer Jerry sitzer who has gone through uh The Fellowship of the Wither himself in very deep ways. [00:09:07]

We're going to learn how do we find God how do we find power how do we find Healing how do we find strength how do you find hope this began for me at a time when my life was just shattered like it had not been before and I did not know what might there be in the future and I would give anything in the world not to have gone through not to have people that I love gone through some of what we have gone through. [00:09:35]

I would not trade the meeting of God in it for anything that's all part of the Fellowship of the withered hand the strange and ancient Community into which people still come that is marked supremely by a cross that's the journey we're going to be on over these next days I will see you there in The Fellowship of the withered hey thanks for joining us my name is Tim and I'm a part of the team here at become new. [00:10:00]

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Want to let you know that John is coming out with a new book titled steps this February the book's actually based on the series Ashes to beauty that we did a few years ago and we're really excited about it you could go to Amazon right now and pre-order that book if you want or check out all the details at our website becom new.com if you've got a prayer request there's a team of us that meet each weekday Monday through Friday to pray for viewers just like yourself. [00:11:04]