In November of 1988, a baby boy was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, and hardly anyone knew about it. His parents named him ‘Hafpor’. Thirty years later, he stands at 6’9”, and weighs 440 pounds. Hafpor Julius Bjornsson is currently designated the world’s strongest man. If you’re unfamiliar with what that means, let me spell it out for you: I drive a Chevy Colorado with a 3-ton towing capacity, while Hafpor has a fifteen-ton towing capacity. I can pull a trailer with my truck. Hafpor can pull airplanes with a rope.
Like all babies, Hafpor started out little; and like most babies, he grew. He grew in both physical dimension and social distinction. Not only is he the strongest man in the world, he’s also an actor. Starring in several roles on TV & film, including a part in the 4th season of HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones”, people everywhere have now seen his face. Hafpor has become hard to hide in more ways than one. That obscure little boy from Iceland just isn’t the same as he used to be. Hafpor grew up.
Becoming a Body that Fascinates.
It’s not his size that makes Hafpor so impressive, it’s his strength. There are a lot of men in this world that stand taller than he does, and many more who are heavier than he is, but no one on the entire planet is stronger. And that’s why we’re so fascinated with his body. No one seems to envy fat; that’s just size without strength. And few people would want to be taller than everyone else, because (aside from a career in the NBA) the advantages would be so outweighed by the disadvantages. But strength? Who wouldn’t want to be a little stronger?
Strength is what God is looking for in our churches more than anything, and what we ought to be striving for above everything. Maturity, stability, spiritual durability. The Body of Christ should be fascinating the world, and it doesn’t need to be big to do it. It only needs to be strong. The Lord God is known for doing great things through small groups of people with little to offer but spiritual resilience. Think of Noah’s family, and what they accomplished. Remember Gideon’s men, and what they did. Consider Esther and her uncle. Look at the Apostles. The amount of weight they were able to pull is remarkable. Maybe that could be us. What would it take?
Two Ways to Gain Weight.
Donuts or dumbbells. Both are equally capable of helping a person grow larger, but you don’t need to be a genius to know which one is the healthier route. Why then, in the church, would we expect God to make something impressive out of this ministry through our mere ‘snacking’? Snacking is when someone goes easy on themselves in the crucial areas of spiritual life like true humility, self-denial, and genuine repentance, by keeping it hidden beneath a thick blanket of church service & participation. There’s no real strength there, just a bunch of fluff. It’s like bulking up on a heavy diet of junk food by about 40 pounds and then thinking you can beat Hafpor at next year’s Strongman Competition. That simply will not happen. The church needs a better strategy than that.
The major difference between you and Hafpor is not so much your size, but your situation. Hafpor works alone. When he pulls an airplane, he does it by himself, but you and I pull as a team. We are inherently dependent upon one another, and if we hope to be strong at all, we need to be strong together. Anyone who refuses to pull their own weight is weakening the whole team.
You need to understand the significant effect your private life has on the rest of the people in this church family. What you do when you’re alone is partly responsible for the health you see in each other when we’re together. We can either pray for each other faithfully, or we can sin against each other clandestinely. Either practice will have an equally tangible, but very opposite effect, on the people you interact with at church. Your private life is either contributing to our health, or our demise.
Don’t Be Like Achan.
It only takes a single individual to hold back an entire team. Achan’s folly reminds us of that (Joshua 7). He secretly took what was not his to take, and worse, he refused to confess it. Because of his private sin and the necessary deceit he used to keep it hidden, the army of Israel suffered public defeat. Thirty six men died because of him, the whole nation lost heart because of him, and God’s people were stopped dead in their tracks because of him. On account of one man’s compromise, corporate zeal was replaced with widespread cowardice, and the hope they once had was sufficiently stamped out. The entire community sustained loss, all because of Achan. Everybody was pulling their weight except him. What a haunting testimony.
Be Like Hafpor.
It’s senseless to believe you can be part of a strong church if you aren’t strong yourself. If you’re not pulling your weight, you’re forcing everyone else to do it for you, and sapping the strength that we’re supposed to have. Do you want to belong to a strong church? Are you willing to make the personal sacrifice for that to happen? We’ve got no less potential than any other group of believers, in any part of the world, at any time in history. If God can preserve the entire human race with 8 people in a boat, or save a whole nation through a young woman & her uncle, or reach this world with the gospel through 12 blue-collar men, then think of what He might do through us…
If Hafpor can pull a plane, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be moving mountains.
Can God do great things through our church? Yes, He can.
Does God want to do great things through our church? Of course He does.
Will He do great things through our church? Not sure. Are you willing to pull your weight?
