The young man was fully engaged in worship: hands raised, eyes closed, mouth wide open in song, completely lost in the moment. This man with Down syndrome was entirely free as he worshiped with all his might. In the moment, I wanted to be free like that! But I have since wondered if, because of my assumptions about his intellectual disabilities, I missed what was really happening.

God had called him to war.

No, that is not hyperbole. I see it in Scripture and in the intensity of hatred around the world toward those with intellectual disabilities. God invites us to trust him when he tells us how his strength manifests mightily in so-called “weaker members.” And few are considered weaker and more vulnerable than those with intellectual disabilities.

Christians appreciate, both biblically and practically, that we are finite and incapable of doing all that God can do. From that standpoint, we embrace God as strong and recognize that we need his persistent, daily help. But we also routinely see fellow humans with intellectual disabilities as being entirely “other” — vulnerable and in need of our protection and care. Yes, they have gifts valuable to the church. But we often limit their realm of influence to the simple things we can see.

So, I plead with you, especially if you are in leadership in the church, to consider what is happening beyond what you observe. Your perception of reality may not be reality. God equips these outwardly weaker members to fight for you, and you need a category for that.

Perception Is Not Reality

In 2 Kings 6, the Syrian army surrounds Elisha to capture and kill him. His servant sees their desperate situation and responds in fear: “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” (6:15).

He cannot see reality until God grants him sight. Elisha tells him,

“Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (6:16–17)

We can be confident that when that servant saw God’s army, he was no longer afraid of the Syrian army.

So, when Paul writes about dangerous forces beyond our ability to perceive with our senses, we should heed him:

We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)

It also means we should believe God when he talks about his strength in our weakness.

Strong in the Seeming Weak

In 1 Corinthians 1:18–31, Paul hammers home what God thinks of worldly wisdom, making sharp distinctions between the wise of this world and God’s infinite ability to save sinners:

The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” (1 Corinthians 1:18–19)

A few verses later, Paul makes an incredible statement:

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. (1 Corinthians 1:27)

The “weak in the world” are not mere bystanders or examples for us. They are chosen by God to actively shame and bring down the strong. But Paul doesn’t end there. In 1 Corinthians 12:12–31, as Paul explains how God makes one body out of many different members, he makes a bold declaration about apparently weaker members:

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor. (1 Corinthians 12:21–23)

Indispensable means not able to be dispensed with, absolutely necessary, essential. These members must be part of the body, or the body will not work as designed.

“Satan is on a global campaign to kill those who have intellectual disabilities.”

And note Paul’s phrase “seem to be weaker.” He knows we are tempted to neglect the supernatural work of God and believe only what our eyes see. If our eyes see an adult with intellectual disabilities who struggles to communicate, who is entirely vulnerable to abuse and manipulation by evil people, who needs others to assist him and protect his interests, we are inclined to discount him as an agent of God’s power. But we must not rely on what “seems to be.”

God Calls the Weak to War

Psalm 8 begins with some of the most recognized words in the Bible: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens” (8:1). And then the psalm seems to take a strange turn:

Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. (8:2)

Psalm 8:1 shows God very strong and majestic, clothed in sovereign power, authority, and dignity. And his sovereign power is so strong that he can strengthen the weakest, most vulnerable humans who do not have the ability even to make intelligible sentences. Pastor John helpfully unpacks Psalm 8:2 this way:

The peculiar mark of God’s majesty is not just that he stoops to listen to or take thought of or care for infants, but that he makes them the means of his triumphs. God conquers his foes through the weaknesses of the weak — the speech of babies. When you think of God as a warrior, remember: he wins with weakness.

The psalmist’s reference to babies and infants emphasizes inability more than age, so we can justly include adults with severe intellectual disabilities here. And God equips these “that seem to be weaker” not just to fight but to win!

My mother lived with severe dementia for several years and lost much of her ability to communicate. One day, while I was visiting my parents, her eyes snapped open out of sleep, and she looked me squarely in the eye and said, “I love Jesus. You should love Jesus too!” What a joy to hear that though she had forgotten who I was, God would not let her forget who her Savior is, and she desired that I know that Savior too. “He wins with weakness,” indeed.

Her powerful words were encouraging — and protective. Had my father or I laid down our spiritual defenses out of grief, discouragement, or exhaustion and allowed sin to take root in our souls? Were we entertaining thoughts whispered by our subtle and wicked spiritual enemy? If so, my mother’s simple words had now fixed our thoughts on Jesus! Given how God delights to use weakness, as revealed in Psalm 8:2, perhaps the Holy Spirit roused my mother from her sleep: “To battle, saint! Deliver these words and rescue your husband and son!”

Satan’s Murderous Rage

Satan is on a global campaign to kill those who have intellectual disabilities. More than two-thirds of unborn children identified with Down syndrome in the United States will be aborted. In Denmark, the number soars to 98 percent. New technologies make the womb an increasingly perilous place for a child with any disability, especially an intellectual disability.

On the other end of life, a study of those who wanted to end their lives under “right to die” laws said they did so mainly “because of loss of autonomy (87.4 percent); impaired quality of life (86.1 percent), and loss of dignity (68.6 percent).” In other words, many people are legally killing themselves not because of pain and suffering but because of their fears about the quality of a life with disabilities, especially an intellectual disability.

Given this worldwide campaign to kill, marginalize, and stigmatize those with intellectual disabilities, one has to wonder, Why is Satan so determined to eliminate them? If they are so weak and useless, why not let them live to distract time, energy, and resources away from the things of God?

The reason is not hard to guess. Imagine being the “god of this world,” with the ability to blind minds (2 Corinthians 4:4), and yet defeated — worse, humiliated — by the so-called weak and foolish ones of the world. Of course he wants them dead. An army commander will seek to reduce the fighting ability of his enemy. Satan knows the Bible better than we do and perfectly understands that their weakness magnifies the power of God in ways that spell his doom.

Now, I’m not suggesting my son’s every utterance is Spirit-filled. But I’ve seen an unexpected word or song from his lips penetrate a hard or broken heart with supernatural power in ways that make no rational, observable sense. And I remember Psalm 8:2.

Do not let the father of lies distract you from these truths. Have you unknowingly embraced a secular, utilitarian view of giftedness that is uncomfortable with supernatural power? Has Satan subtly encouraged you to overlook all that God has said in his word about his strength magnified in weakness?

Be Supernatural Christians

Dear reader, and especially pastors, we need to reclaim a biblical, supernatural vision of reality! Adam and Eve, in the perfection of the garden and with unfallen mental and physical capacities, succumbed to the snake’s seductive speech. Their intellectual capacities did not protect them from sin and ruinous error, and neither can ours.

Trust and worship our God — a kind God who equips the weak among us to defeat his foes for his glory and our good. Some of those who live with intellectual disabilities will require what feels like a discouraging amount of your time, energy, and effort. May God give you discerning, spiritual eyes to appreciate that God is equipping your church for war. And may you, with joy, welcome, build up, and deploy these uniquely gifted people in the happy work of making much of Jesus.

Ah, Sunday. That majestic morning when my children awake to the aroma of eggs and bacon and fresh-squeezed orange juice. When they bound down the stairs, Bibles in hand and a song in their hearts. When I lead them in family worship over breakfast, and my wife plays the piano as we prepare our hearts for meeting with the people of God.

The only downside when we finish is that we still have time to kill. Oh well. At least we’ll be super early to church — again!

Reality Check

If you’re smirking, it’s because you know this is not reality. Many of us struggle just to get ourselves in one piece to church, much less an elderly parent or a gaggle of little ones. So often, we shovel in some breakfast and figure out what to wear and look for our keys and clamber into the car and lose our patience on the way until we arrive, distracted and disheveled — again. Though we walk smilingly through the doors, our minds and hearts remain miles away.

This scenario may be a little extreme, but it is less hypothetical than some of us — even some of the shiniest saints — may wish to admit. It’s one thing to be present at church, but it’s another to be prepared for church.

Before considering practical remedies for this rut, an important caveat is in order.

If you struggle with depression or are riddled with doubts or have been mistreated by church leaders or are raising kids by yourself, it’s understandable if attending church feels like an arduous ministry. For some Christians, simply getting out of bed requires courage and faith — how much more getting all the way to church. As Rosaria Butterfield has said, “We may never know the treacherous journey people have taken to land in the pew next to us.” So, if gathering with a healthy church is hard and you’re doing so anyway, God bless you.

That said, I am not writing mainly to those for whom church is painful but to those for whom church has become routine — the kind of believers who, when Sunday rolls around, are more likely to yawn than wince. Thankfully, there are many simple changes we can all make to maximize our Sundays. Consider just two.

1. Come Hungry, Leave Full

If your car has been sitting in freezing rain for days, it may take a while for the engine to warm up and run well. For so many years of my Christian life, I basically came to the sermon cold. Maybe I knew the passage to be preached, but I hadn’t read it beforehand.

Why not make it a practice to read the sermon passage before coming to church? It’s not difficult, and you have a whole week to do it. This habit will enrich your sermon-listening experience since you’ll be familiar with the passage. You will therefore lean in, curious to see how the pastor handles this doctrine or that verse. It’s also a habit you can easily practice with others — your family or roommate or friend. It will warm the engine of your mind (and hopefully your heart) so that you are locked in when the message begins, eager to learn and grow.

How often do you pray for your pastor as he’s preparing sermons for you? It’s good if you hold him to a high standard (1 Timothy 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9), but do you hold yourself to a high standard of prayer for him? Sermon prep is hard. It’s lonely. It’s war. But you can join the fight by asking God to give your pastor insight, to guard him from distraction, to guide him in faithfully unleashing and applying God’s truth.

Don’t stop there, however. Come hungry, yes, but also resolve to leave full.

Sometimes, I tell my congregation that what they get out of my sermons is not just up to me. It’s also up to them. What’s your posture when the message begins? Is it essentially relax and wait to be entertained, or is it lean in, Bible open, ready to hear from the living God? Admittedly, this expectancy comes easier with some passages. I recently preached about an Israelite assassin stabbing a Moabite king, whose fat swallowed the blade as he soiled himself (Judges 3:12–30). The story is, let’s just say, captivating. But what about passages that are deeply familiar or almost elementary in their simplicity? If pride thinks, I’ve heard this before, humility thinks, Who here hasn’t? And if pride thinks, I know this already, humility thinks, I need this again.

Resolving to “leave full” presupposes, of course, that you’re hearing the Bible faithfully proclaimed in your church. (If not, find a different one.) To be sure, you may not be sitting under the greatest preaching in the world. But that’s okay, for as Harold Best once remarked, “A mature Christian is easily edified.” That quote challenges me so much. Let’s say the production quality of the music or the delivery skill of the preacher leaves much to be desired. Are the words true? If so, we should be easily edified. We should be able to leave full.

2. Come Early, Stay Late

The practice of coming early and lingering after is not always easy to pull off, but it can make all the difference. The needed resolve just can’t come on Sunday morning. That’s too late! As my friend Dean Inserra likes to say, Sunday-morning church is a Saturday-night decision. The only way you will ever find yourself there early is if you have forced yourself to be there early.

But arriving early — which of course means waking up early and adjusting your morning routine — yields all kinds of benefits. For starters, it prevents distraction. You’re not careening into the parking lot 43 seconds before the service begins. You’re not rushing through the doors, unable to really engage with anyone because, well, you have to get in there and find a seat (perhaps after dropping off a kid or three). When you do finally sit down — or not, because everyone’s already singing — your mind is racing. Announcements sail over your head. You absorb little from the prayers. Bottom line: you’re engaging from a deficit, trying to catch up, trying to focus, trying to worship. But because you didn’t come earlier, you don’t begin worshiping until halfway through the service.

Arriving early is only half the battle, though. It also helps to linger after the service.

If you’re a Christian, there is no day in your week more important than Sunday. Because it’s the day King Jesus got up from the dead, it’s the day on which his redeemed people have assembled to celebrate him. Sunday worship is the launching pad of your week — a God-designed opportunity to be replenished, receive instruction and encouragement, and catch your breath before stepping back into the duties and distractions of life in a chaotic world. Why rush to leave?

When you linger afterward, you open yourself to connect with others unhurriedly — which nowadays is a countercultural gift. You can ask deliberate questions and listen well. After all, as one person observed, “Being listened to is so close to being loved that most people cannot tell the difference.” If someone is visiting, you can greet him or her warmly, answering questions and exhibiting genuine interest in the exchange. If they’re a fellow member, you can draw him or her out (Proverbs 20:5) and perhaps speak a simple word of encouragement or of challenge — or, best of all, words of prayer, lifting up burdens on the spot to the God who hears.

Sticking around after church also gives you the chance to ask another member how the Lord just ministered to them. Posing such a question shouldn’t be perceived as super-spiritual — it should be normal. How tragic that we can stand in the lobby and feel comfortable discussing fantasy football or the latest show (which is fine) but awkward discussing the very thing we’ve come together to do. Church is not just an event we show up to; it’s a family we belong to. And since the family gathers to be changed, not merely entertained, why not seize the opportunity to debrief while the songs and sermon are still fresh, still ringing in our ears, still begging to be applied?

A mature Christian arrives with eyes for others, plotting to encourage and serve. On Sundays, we meet with Jesus Christ and these blood-bought people he’s placed in our lives — so it’s a privilege to come early and stay late.

Positioned for Success

In an age of customized DIY spirituality that values convenience and comfort more than any previous era in history, committing to a local church amounts to a revolutionary act — and a beautiful one.

By resolving to come hungry and leave full, we position ourselves to grow. And by resolving to come early and stay late, we position ourselves to serve.

Christianity is not a spectator sport. So, let’s get in the game — and stay there, side by side, Sunday after Sunday — until Jesus our King brings us safely home.

Audio Transcript

It’s Job week on the podcast. The book of Job is a source of a lot of APJ questions, and the source of a lot of answers too on all sorts of topics over the years. We have eighty episodes now mentioning Job — on every topic you can imagine. I’m surprised how often we return to this important book, which is not easy to interpret. We’re reading the book together in our Bible reading. Today we read Job 16 together.

The whole book is challenging to interpret because it’s littered with errors, Pastor John — errors about suffering, errors about providence, and even false statements about God himself, a distortion on full display for us here in our reading today, in the early verses of chapter 16. There we find a mix of things that are true and things certainly false, most starkly in Job 16:7–9. Verse 7 is sovereignly true. God brought the suffering into Job’s life by his plan and permission. Yes. But then verse 9 seems devilishly false. God did not bring the suffering because he hates Job. So, how do we parse fact from fiction as we read Job’s words, along with his wife and all of his friends, trying to interpret providence?

Well, that is the right question to ask, I think, because perhaps the most striking thing about the structure of the book of Job is that from chapters 3 to 31 you have 29 chapters of back-and-forth between Job and his three so-called comforters or friends, both of them speaking a mixture of truth and falsehood. It’s simply stunning to me that the author would devote 29 out of 42 chapters to a jumble of good and bad statements about human suffering and God’s sovereignty. The author seems to be especially exercised that there is so much bad theology about the sovereignty of God and human suffering. That, it seems, is why he gives 29 chapters to it.

The Errors of Job and His Friends

We can summarize the simplistic theology of suffering and sovereignty in the mouth of the three friends with Job 4:7–8. They say, “Who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.” In other words, their answer to Job’s extended suffering is that it is owing to his iniquity. The righteous prosper; the wicked suffer. In chapter after chapter, they accuse Job of all kinds of sin, from bribery to deceit to neglect of the poor. And for Job’s part, he despairs of being treated justly by God and says repeatedly, at least three times, that God is treating him as an enemy (Job 13:24, for example) and that God, in fact, hates him (Job 16:9).

“We don’t know enough about God’s hidden ways and plans to pass any valid negative judgment about his ways.”

Now, what they all agree on is that God is absolutely sovereign. That’s amazing. They never question that. We moderns, we’re bold and brash enough to get in God’s face and say that he’s not sovereign. That’s never once questioned by anybody in the book of Job. What they are struggling with is why a person like Job is enduring such long and terrible suffering. The friends’ answer is, “His suffering correlates with his sin.” Job’s answer is, “I don’t understand what’s going on, but all I can tell is that God is treating me as though he hated me.”

A Grid for the Book of Job

I think the way the author intends for us to sort out what is true and what is false in what Job and his friends say in these 29 chapters is by letting the rest of the book — what came before in chapters 1–2, and what comes after in chapters 32–42 — let all of that provide the grid, the framework, the criteria for separating truth and error in Job 3–31.

So, let me try to sketch very briefly what that grid is.

1. Job’s Goodness

The point of chapters 1–2 is that Job was a good man, a God-fearing man: “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1). He proved that profoundly with his godly response, blessing God, worshiping God (Job 1:20–21). In the midst of the loss of his children, the loss of his health, he submitted to the sovereign wisdom, justice, and goodness of God, even though he couldn’t see it all. In Job 2:10, he says, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” And the inspired author puts his approval on those words: “In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”

The fact that we are given a glimpse into heaven as Satan and God interact about the life of Job, which Job could not see, is intended to show that on earth, we don’t know enough about God’s hidden ways, his hidden plans, to pass any valid negative judgment about his ways. So, we have a signal from the author from the beginning that Job’s three friends are not right. They are treating Job as if there’s sin everywhere in his life, which explains his suffering. And the point of chapters 1–2 is that that’s not true. There must be another explanation. But for Job, for 31 chapters, he can’t figure that out.

2. Elihu’s Explanation

So, the next big unit is Elihu, the young man who steps forward, who I believe is speaking the truth in order to correct both Job and his friends. Here’s Job 32:2–3: “Elihu . . . burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God. He burned with anger also at Job’s three friends because they had found no answer, although they had declared Job to be in the wrong.”

“Suffering, in the case of God’s children, is a gracious means by which he exposes pride in our lives.”

What’s new about Elihu’s theology of suffering is that he does not correlate suffering merely with a punitive act of God against Job, but he introduces this new factor in Job 33:14–19 that suffering, in the case of God’s children, is a gracious means by which he exposes the sediment of pride at the bottom of our lives, lying there undetected, and then you get bumped by suffering, and the sediment stirs up. He exposes that and mercifully leads us to repentance and trust. That’s what’s going to happen to Job.

Now, I don’t think that contradicts the statement at the beginning of the book of Job — that Job was a good and God-fearing man. But it clarifies that in the best of men, whom God regards as good and God-fearing, there are remnants of indwelling sin. And one way that God in his mercy cleanses us and humbles us and brings us to fuller, deeper repentance and deeper trust is through suffering. He tests us to see if we will hold fast to him in love.

3. God’s Response

Then the next major unit in the book is the word of God himself in chapters 38–41. And the basic message there is, “Job, you just don’t know enough to pass judgment on me. You need to put away your accusations and trust me. You darken counsel without knowledge” (see Job 38:2).

4. Job’s Repentance

The final part of the book is Job’s confession of God’s sovereignty and his own repentance for having spoken so badly about God. Job 42:5–6: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” So, the Lord tests Job one last time now to see if he has the new, fresh grace to pray for the forgiveness of his three friends who wounded him so badly. Job 42:10: “And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends.”

So, I think the author intends for us to step back and see the God-fearing goodness of Job at the beginning, and the refining of Job’s holiness and faith through suffering, and his rejection of the simplistic view of the three friends, and his repentance for having found fault with God, and the beauty of his humility and love at the end. And the author expects us to take all of that as the grid through which we now will be able to sort out what is true and what is false in the mouth of Job and his friends in chapters 3–31.