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Good morning, everybody. My name is Keji, and Pastor has asked me to share the word with us this morning.
This morning I've titled my message "Where is God in the Noise of Life?" Everything that has been said and sung this morning points in one direction: yielding yourself to God. Before we dive in, I want to take you through my deliberations as I landed on where we're starting.
Last week, Pastor was talking about your weakness being made perfect with the grace of God. He shared how God invites us to bring our weakness to Him, just as Paul said: "My grace is sufficient for you; my power is made perfect in weakness." But I asked myself a critical question: How do we correctly identify weakness?
If you can't correctly identify weakness, how can you ask for grace? Are we carrying things we call strengths when God is calling them weaknesses? It's very easy to look around us and use the world to identify strength and weakness. At work, they tell you what makes a good project manager. But I've found that what one organization calls a weakness, another organization hired you for. So if that's the case, then with God, can the things He calls perfection be called rubbish by the world? Can we ourselves have tagged them as weakness over time?
Tagging something as weakness comes from everything around us. We are formed by our family, our environment, our schools, our friends, the things we've been told growing up—and even now. I remember someone sharing at Sunday school how she was told she had to fail five times at driving, and she just accepted it: driving is not for me. But these are the silent baggage we carry. And God says: I need you to hand that to me. It's a weakness, and I need to be able to use it.
It's easy to read 2 Corinthians 12 and say, "Yes, Lord, I hand my weaknesses to you, and your grace is sufficient." But have we truly identified what our weaknesses are?
Think about Gideon. In Judges 6:11, the Bible tells us that the Midianites had been attacking Israel. They had become a shadow of themselves, living in fear. The angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon at the winepress:
"The angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites."
Let me paint this picture for you. Wheat was normally threshed on the threshing floor—an open ground. But because of fear, because they were living in the shadow of themselves, surrounded by things that were hunting them, Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress. A winepress is like a room. Threshing normally depends on the power of the wind to sort the grains, but in a closed room, there's no wind. Gideon had to do the work manually, painfully, just to survive. He was hiding, and he wasn't even doing the work properly.
Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said:
"The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor."
How ironic. Here he is in hiding, knowing he dares not go out and do what he's doing. But God calls him everything that seems opposite of what he looks like right now. If Gideon were going to hand a weakness to God, he'd say: There's nothing wrong with threshing wheat in the winepress. Circumstances have made me this way. It's not a weakness. But God calls him a mighty man of valor.
Think about yourself as I'm saying this. I'm just working a normal job. I have a normal family. Everything around me is normal. I went to school when everybody did. I graduated like everyone else. It looks normal. But then God comes to you and says: "You mighty man of valor. You person, I've chosen to speak to my generation. You person, I've chosen to sing for me. You person, I've chosen to reach out to the homeless on my behalf." And you first look at yourself and think: Who, me?
In Judges 6:13, Gideon responded:
"Oh Lord, my God, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his miracles which our fathers told us about? Did not the Lord bring us from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites."
Notice something: Gideon didn't personalize the question anymore. It wasn't about him alone. He went collective. He said, "If God is with us, then why is all this happening to us?" He was thinking about the national God, the God of Israel who dealt with the collective.
But God's response in Judges 6:14 shifted everything:
"Then the Lord turned to him and said, 'Go in this might of yours. You shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?'"
God moved the conversation from the collective to just Gideon. He didn't say, "Israel, go, and I will deliver all of you." He said, "You, Gideon, in your might. When God is calling your attention to things about you, He will personalize it. That's why God always isolates to give a message. Most of us have grown up with collective messages—the message of the house, the message of family devotion. But when God needs to use you individually, He will isolate you and give you a message for you. What might be the thing for the whole tribe might not be yours. So God isolates to give an individual message.
But Gideon didn't stop making excuses. In Judges 6:15, he said:
"Oh my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house."
Gideon went from Israel to clan. He kept moving back to the collective. Your relationship with God is individual. It's not collective. You don't pray because the church asked you to pray. You read your Bible not because church called Bible study, but because it's an audience of one. You pray because it's an audience of one.
Everything Gideon was saying to God was: Don't isolate me. If you do, I'll look too naked. Keep me in the safety of the people I know so that I'm okay just being there. And God said: No, I want you as one.
Here's what's remarkable: God knew all of this about Gideon. He said to Gideon:
"Before you were formed in your mother's womb, I knew you. I ordained you." (Jeremiah 1:5)
To Moses, He said:
"I have given you the tongue to speak to Pharaoh."
All the things we come to God as excuses—But God, I didn't grow up well. But God, I'm still carrying junk—are we really saying that God doesn't know? Are we saying God isn't aware of where you were born, what school traumatized you, what junk you're carrying?
When we think God doesn't know what He's saying, we resist the move of God in our lives. Because if Gideon never moved, the move of God would not be upon his life. You need to stop making excuses for God on your behalf. God knows you.
I was traumatized from secondary school in Nigeria. Maybe I traumatized others too, but they traumatized me. Boarding school is interesting—they put young children together to cohabit, but nobody tells them how to live together or love each other. They just work it out. And we worked it out in ways that weren't godly at all. We'd carry our bags on Sunday and go to chapel and sing songs about loving each other. We didn't. We were the most messed-up bunch of kids.
But here's where the grace of God comes in. Years later, I thought back on my JS3 year and realized I didn't treat people well. I thought, God, if this is my history, and social media exists now, maybe that girl will tweet about me one day: "Is this your leader? You know what she did to me?" And I asked God: How can you want to use me?
And God said: "Do you think I don't know what you went through? Do you think those things matter to me now? Do you think you have not repented?"
We decide to help God carry the sin that He died on the cross for. It's as if when Jesus died, He left some behind for you to carry. You obsess over those things to help Him carry them. This is what Gideon was doing.
God specializes in using people that don't look like it, because that's where this verse becomes evident:
"My grace is made perfect in your weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)
When God uses you, people will say nothing but: This is the hand of God upon this person.
Think about Paul and Peter—both apostles, but from very different backgrounds. Paul came from the back end. He said:
"If anyone has reason to boast in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless." (Philippians 3:4-6)
But then he said:
"I consider them rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him... I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection." (Philippians 3:8-10)
Why? Because it's not me, but it's the power of God that is at work in me.
Paul is the one who looks like it according to world standards. But even he is saying that despite all of that, he drops it down and takes on God instead. This is about correctly identifying what you need to hand to God.
According to world standards, Paul wouldn't need to hand anything to God—he fits. If it's eloquence, he had it. If it's the best job, today Paul would probably be consulting for the Big Four companies. He'd have ten podcasts and be a guest on three others. He'd have four consulting organizations messaging him. He'd be on some "20 Under 30" or "30 Under 40" list. He'd be in the Guinness Book of Records. His social media would buzz. He'd wake up with ten million new followers.
So where is the weakness you hand to God?
I'm saying this so we understand: Handing weakness to God is a personal thing. It's not in the view of the world. It's not according to what the world tells you. It's according to what God says to you.
In Judges 6:16, God said to Gideon:
"Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites—as one man."
As one man. It's an audience of one.
It's easy to be comfortable when you weave in and weave out, when you're in the collective. You come to church and nobody sees you because you sat at the back or by the door. As soon as grace is said, you're out. You can tick the box: I was in church. But God says: You will defeat the Midianites as one man.
In Judges 6:17, Gideon asked:
"If now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who want to talk with me."
Gideon was saying: This is strange. It's usually the Israelites collectively. Moses was the one who had access. How do I know you're sending me?
God wants vulnerability. Please be vulnerable with God. Please don't act like you know everything. You don't. Ask God questions. Ask Him questions because He wants to answer them. Culture may have taught you not to question God, but that's not true. You can absolutely question Him. That's what He wants. He wants a conversation with you. He wants to know what's deepest in your heart. In questioning God, you receive answers.
Mary asked: "How will these things be?" and received her answer. When the angel came to Samson's parents about his Nazerite consecration, his father asked: "What will be the consecrations of this boy? What must we do?" God answered.
I use that story to say: You can't look at other people's lives and use that to shadow what you're going to do. We do this so much. We become clones of people we admire. You're not called to be a clone of anybody. You can have your own hairstyle, wear your own jeans, dress in your own way. You can have your own mind. God wants to have a conversation with you. You can have a ministry that doesn't look like anything you've seen before. If God calls you to it, that's an isolated ministry, one that God will truly bless.
In Judges 6:18-21, Gideon prepared an offering:
"Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket and the broth in a pot, and he brought them out to him under the terebinth tree and presented them. The angel of the Lord said to him, 'Take the meat and the unleavened bread, and lay them on this rock, and pour the broth over them.' And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread. And fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread."
When Gideon saw this, in Judges 6:22-23:
"Now Gideon perceived that it was the angel of the Lord. And Gideon said, 'Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.' But the Lord said to him, 'Peace be with you. Do not fear. You shall not die.'"
There was deep fear because it was known that you couldn't see God face to face and live. But the angel of the Lord said: Peace. Don't fear. You won't die.
Now, we have the Holy Spirit, which is exponentially more of a witness than what happened in Gideon's story. The Bible says the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth. If you're saying, "God, I want to understand what you truly call weakness in my life," then you're inviting a relationship with the Holy Spirit.
We talk about the Holy Spirit a lot: Holy Spirit, help me. That's very common for me. But one day God said: "Is that the only thing? Holy Spirit, only help? Why are you always in trouble? Surely we can avoid getting into trouble in the first place. If it's help, why must you speak faster than your brain? Then you're not asking for help—you're asking for an emergency rescue."
I realized: I only call on the Holy Spirit as an emergency contact. But the Holy Spirit is not your emergency contact. He's your friend. How do you talk to a friend? You talk to a friend every day. You commune with them. You send pictures. You know what's going on in their life, when they wake up, when they go to work, when they sleep.
The Bible calls the Holy Spirit your friend. If you don't use Him in daily life, how do you want Him to help you discern things that look right to everyone else but God is calling you to be different in?
When I moved to Glasgow, I had a season where I was wrestling with God. I was thinking: God, why do you allow these things to befall me? Help me. But nothing was really helping. I didn't see fire consume the people. I was just... stuck. And I thought: But God, I've served you. They said if you serve God, your life will be good.
And God was like: "Yeah, let me tell you something about that. When you serve me, you invite me into your life. By deciding to be a child of God, you've invited God in. By taking salvation, you've said to Jesus: You're mine and I'm yours. The day I like it, the day I don't."
Think about parents with their kids. Not every day do kids want to be your child, right? Some days they're like: "Nah, not today. I'd like to move out of this house. This is not nice." But they don't get to make that choice. The minute they're born into the house, that's it. Rain or shine, we're here together. If you want to lock yourself in the toilet for 10 minutes, do that. But come out and we proceed with our relationship.
God said: "When you're done being angry, then we can talk."
Because God can't talk through your anger. Many of us are carrying years of anger. Unforgiveness is anger. God can't talk through that. The resentment, the guilt, materialism—God cannot talk through those things. He will call you to drop them.
I had a very lovely neighbor in Glasgow—I call her lovely now, but back then I didn't have nice adjectives for her. I thought she was just... why? Why are you in my business? She would ask to be involved in everything about my flat. She'd knock: "Your bin is not positioned properly. Oh, your window is like this. I saw you do this." And I'm thinking: What? My life is my business. Why is she bothered?
But God was going to use this woman to speak to me about places that I didn't even know were issues.
One day, the boarding school version of me came out. I called her over and said: "If you see me coming this way, you go that way. Don't be involved in my life. Don't talk to me. Don't say hello. Mind your business." I beat her off with my words. She went back to her flat shaking. And I felt so proud of myself. I was happy. I thought: Yeah, she'll never bother me again. I even had my eyes on the next neighbor.
But then I went back to my flat, and the Holy Spirit said: "Are you happy with yourself?"
Those words pierced my soul.
God said: "You might as well have touched her. Are you happy with yourself? Do you know that you have character that I cannot work with? Everybody else tells you you're okay according to world standards. She came to look for your trouble. Everyone would tell you: You did nothing wrong. You're on your own. She came to meet you. But in front of me, those standards don't work."
As I sat through that week, the Holy Spirit was really chastising me about my behavior. And then I started to see things in my character I'd never noticed before. Things that people had even praised me for. Friends said: "That's why you're my best friend." But God said: "You can't go by that."
We had a WhatsApp group that was only for the latest information about what was happening. I had moved to Scotland but I still knew everything happening in London as it happened. And God said: "You're a gossip." I said: "No, we just gist. It's different." He said: "Gist is somebody else's information becoming interest to you and making conclusions based on what you don't know. Why must you do this with somebody else's life?"
Then He said: "You're jealous." I said: "Jealous? I don't go for what's not mine." He said: "You're a very jealous person." And then: "You don't love people."
I said: "No, God. No. Nobody says I'm a noisemaker." He said: "What you call love doesn't qualify in front of me."
That's when God started to make me understand: What you might count as not a weakness in front of God, it doesn't qualify. Even Moses felt anger that was warranted according to standards. But that same anger didn't allow him to enter the Promised Land.
When you think about your relationship with God, what do you want out of that one-on-one time with Him? You want God to speak to those things that don't look obvious but are holding you back from what He wants you to do.
I call that season my "gracefully broken" period. I was broken, but I didn't break. I cried in my room many times. I prefer being beaten to being spoken to—that's just my nature. But the words God was speaking to me pierced my soul.
God speaks to you in the way you understand. Maybe you see that dream job at Morgan Stanley, and you're like: "God, please, if only you'd give me this." And God knows: Now I have your attention. Now He can correct the things He wants in you.
You might say: "But Keji, why would God do that to me?" Because your salvation is more important to Him than Morgan Stanley. God cares more that you make heaven than that you make it in an office.
I can assure you: when you enter that office, you'll be tired. You'll be looking for the next one. I promise you that a thousand times over. I said: When I enter this office, my life is made. I'm done. I'll never hate anybody there. If they say jump, I'll say five times. Then you enter and you find yourself complaining about the manager you used to admire on LinkedIn.
If those things don't give you satisfaction, God is saying: These things are not it. When you chase materialism, He tells you: Materialism is not why we're here. We're here for your soul. So He speaks to you in ways you understand, making sure you know: It's only Him that can satisfy.
The other thing we're quick at is providing solutions for God's promises. Sarah provided a solution for the child Abraham was told he'd have as descendants. Did that child satisfy what God would do? No.
We provide solutions that are temporary or bring more problems. Why do you do it? Why don't you wait for the God of your salvation to come through for you?
Coming to church on Sunday—I'm sorry, but it's not the measurement of a relationship with God. I keep saying that because we use it to measure. I'm a Christian. I've gone to church. But after today, will you open your Bible? After today, will you talk to God? Tomorrow morning, who's the first person you greet—God or Twitter? God or TikTok? Can you wait on God?
If God says: "I don't want you to take that job," will you say: "God, I listen to you because I know the plans you have for me are good and not evil, to bring me to an expected end. I truly believe you have everything about me in your hands"?
When you find God, you'll be satisfied. Everything you seem to be chasing will become irrelevant. When they truly say "You don't look like what you're going through," that will be the meaning. Because in God, you are satisfied. There is joy.
People who really know what's up will ask: "Are you okay?" They might even think you're depressed because you're dancing. But when you find God, the Bible calls it joy. The spirit of joy comes upon you.
Joy is not happiness. Happiness is based on happenings. When someone cracks jokes, we all get happy. When they leave the stage, you're back to: What will I eat this afternoon? Oh no, there's no more gas on the meter. But joy says: Regardless of what's going on, you have the joy of the Lord at all times.
If you're thinking about the things of God, remember: The feel of God should never get too much. It is never too much to know God. You might say: "Oh, I'm not a pastor. God is only for pastors and worship leaders." No. God is for every single one of us.
Isaiah 55:1-3 is an invitation from God:
"Oh, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come and buy. You who have no money, come buy and eat. Yes, come buy wine and milk without money, without the price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread? And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me. Eat what is good. Let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to me. Hear and your soul shall live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the sure mercies of David."
How ironic: Buy without money. What does money represent? It represents what you think you need to have to feed from God. God is saying: Actually, I give you more without you having what you think you need.
Why do we spend money—our time, our energy—for what is not bread? We do this constantly. If you want to research the latest immigration policies, we can recite them. We know what the Prime Minister wants to release tomorrow, what he released last year, what he'll release in ten years, how Parliament is thinking about visas. But if it's God's truth, why are we spending our money—our time—on what is not bread?
You spend time in WhatsApp groups that don't feed your spirit. There's the group that's just for the latest gossip—They said they're firing this person, they said that. You've already started receiving what's not true. You're spending bread—you're spending your time, which is money—for what is not bread. It doesn't satisfy.
"Eat what is good. Let your soul delight itself in abundance." What is abundance? The truth of God.
"Incline your ear and come to me. Hear and your soul shall live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the sure mercies of David."
The sure mercies of David, described in 2 Samuel 7, are God's promise of descendants that would not phase out. Essentially, Jesus came through the line of David. So the sure mercies of David is God giving you a Savior—in Him, all things are fulfilled.
This morning, I want us to think on these things. Go home or even from here—maybe open your notes and write:
Because people can package supposed bread for you, and you eat it. But if it is not God's truth, why are we spending time on it? It is not it. It is not it at all.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your children this morning. We thank you for this invitation to know more of you, to speak more, to come to a one-on-one, an audience of one with you. Lord, in their hearts, make your presence known. They will come to a knowing of you. Lord, where there's difficulty in understanding the person of God, the Holy Spirit, illuminate. Father, I pray for godly friends, godly families that can align together to bring this vision alive—the things of God. Thank you, Lord, for placing us in places where we can feed on each other and become whole. Thank you for allowing us to identify where we're using our money to buy things that are not bread, things that drain us of our time with you.
There's a song that's been in my spirit since the early hours:
"Lord, I thirst for you. I long to be in your presence. My soul will wait for you. Father, draw me nearer. Draw me nearer to the beauty of your holiness. Lord, I thirst for you. I want to be in your presence. My soul will wait for you. Father, draw me nearer. Draw me nearer to the beauty of your holiness."
I want you to sing it as a declaration. An audience of one. Amen.
