Sincerity The Path To Strength by Pastor Lawrence Oyor: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

In seasons of weakness, the enemy targets a person specifically so the damage will leave scars even after the person is strengthened again. Strength that is lost can be regained, and strength gained can also be lost again; nothing about it is permanent. Someone can weep at an altar, get delivered, and walk back into a house or a marriage where the same toxic structure, an addicted roommate, an unresolved strife, a silent house, is waiting to undo the breakthrough. It is not enough to feel free once; structures have to be built around a life that hold that freedom in place, which is why a person cannot afford to be without friends who are stronger than they are, and why, for some people, staying with parents, or with someone who also fears God, is actually wisdom rather than a step backward.

1 Samuel 30:1-6

When David and his men returned to Ziklag, they found it burned and their families taken captive by the Amalekites, and the people, grieving for their own sons and daughters, spoke of stoning him. David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. He did it by remembering, deliberately calling to mind every time God had already come through for him, because the encounters that produced past strength are not lost; remembering them reenacts that same atmosphere. Even where there is no friend present to help carry a person through a crisis, one person can still stand; company only makes it better, it is never the only way to remain strong.

Unhealed Weakness Leaves Debris the Enemy Can Use

Even after a difficult season is survived, the debris it leaves behind, mistakes made while weak, things said and done, can quietly become material the enemy holds in reserve, cards to be played later specifically to keep a person from speaking with boldness even once they are strong again.

Losses Are a Sign of Weakness

Luke 11:21-22

When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are at peace; it is only where there is a gap that a thief can enter to steal. Consistent, unexplained losses, files disappearing, equipment failing, money leaking away, are not simply bad luck; they are a sign that something is not strong. One instance can be explained away, but a pattern needs to be addressed immediately, and it matters who a valuable work is entrusted to, since some warfare is only defeated by people who are stronger than the one currently carrying the assignment.

Easy Prey to Temptation and Compromise

Mark 14:66-72

Peter's three denials happened within perhaps an hour, one temptation arriving before the last one had even finished, until his own accent gave him away and he began to swear that he did not know the man. Weakness is what made it possible to deny, in one night, someone he had walked with for three and a half years, someone he himself had once called the one with the words of eternal life. None of that fall was written as necessary; Jesus prophesied it as a warning, not a plan, and gave Peter the exact remedy in advance: "Pray, so that you do not fall into temptation." Peter did not pray. He slept. That prayer could have strengthened his will enough that the fall would never have happened the way it did.

Philippians 2:13

It is possible to be entirely sincere in wanting to do right and still not do it, because the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak. The will to want something and the strength to actually execute it are two different measures, which is why a person can know for years that a course of study or a habit would change their life and still not begin it; it takes real strength, not just willingness, to move into execution.

Sincerity Is Where Strength Begins

Psalm 24:3-4

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord, who shall stand in His holy place? He that has clean hands and a pure heart. Praying without genuine sincerity does not convert into strength, no matter how it sounds. Sincerity simply means being exactly who you are, raw and vulnerable, before God. Every time a person is more concerned with saving face than being honest, that is the moment strength is being prevented.

It is not easy to be sincere before people who look up to you as strong, a pastor, a mentor, an established minister giving accurate prophetic words to others, and yet still be privately unwell and still refuse to respond to an altar call because being seen needing one feels unthinkable. Once church becomes a place where everyone is performing being fine, there is no hope left, because there is nowhere else God can reach a person, not in secret, not in public, if not even there.

In December 2016, at a Bible school, a season of simple, familiar preaching had only made an already established minister more offended and bitter, wondering why he had even come, until the meeting was closing and a young man interrupted to say he felt someone should respond. "Pride is ugly. Take it out of me," was the cry that followed on the ground that day, a death to a major stronghold that changed him so visibly he began hugging people and telling his own mother she was beautiful, something he had never done before.

Sincerity Is Not the Same as Complaint

Sincerity means saying exactly how something feels without collapsing into unbelief or accusation. There is a real difference between telling God, "It feels like You are not here, but I know Your word says You are, so strengthen my heart," which is honest and still ends in faith, and outright accusing God the way Israel did in the wilderness. Jesus modeled the balance in Gethsemane: entirely honest that He did not want to go to the cross if there was another way, and still ending with, "not my will, but yours be done." Venting is for your own heart; God already knows what is happening. The prayer should always end in faith, even when it begins in honest weakness.

Reverence Still Matters

Revelation 1:17

Real closeness to God has never removed the need for reverence; if anything, an actual encounter increases it. After John fell as though dead at the sight of Christ, he did not go on calling Him casually; nearness to God does not make Him smaller, and what often passes for intimacy is really just a lack of encounter.

Numbers 20:7-12

Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it, just once, and was told plainly that he would not enter the promised land; the grace and the love do not remove the seriousness of the relationship.

Hebrews 12:29

Our God is a consuming fire.

Don't Cross From Sincerity Into Disrespect

1 Kings 19:4

Sincerity says, "I am struggling, please help me." It does not say, "I don't need You anymore," or issue an ultimatum. Elijah was raw and sincere when he said, "I am not better than my fathers," but there is a difference between sincerity and speaking with open disrespect toward God, and the second one carries consequences that can silence a person's usefulness for good.

Sincerity Also Means Actually Correcting What's Wrong

Praying about something without actually setting it right, restitution that is owed, a relationship left broken and unaddressed for months or years while "praying about it," is not sincerity, it is avoidance dressed up as devotion. A sincere person sets structures that prevent the next fall; without sincerity, the same pattern simply keeps repeating.

Father, I receive grace to walk sincerely, to admit my wrong.

• I receive grace to be true and sincere, sincere with myself, sincere with You, sincere with my neighbors, to be the same thing inside that I am outside.
• Help me to just be true and sincere so I don't keep moving in circles.
• I receive grace to walk in sincerity from today.

Father, I thank You for all these precious ones who have come to say they want to be more sincere. As they leave this altar, may they never look back again. May the strength that insincerity has sapped from them now be theirs, in Jesus' mighty name.