1 Corinthians 1: When You Feel Powerless, You Are His Workmanship

Introduction

"And God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that are not, that he might bring to nothing the things that are." This Sunday, October 4, 2026, at Yonezawa Kōjō Church in Japan, Nobuo Tanaka preaches on this single verse, 1 Corinthians 1:28, under a simple title: "When You Feel Powerless."

He asks the congregation right away: "What do you think?" Everyone knows the moment when we say to ourselves: "I'm worth nothing, I'm lagging behind." The preacher shows where this feeling comes from, then opens another way of seeing yourself: no longer as a product that gets compared, but as God's workmanship.

His message moves through stories: a very famous actress in Japan and the school principal who believed in her, a black, dented tea bowl, a poet who lost everything, a church imprisoned during the war, an unexpected birthday card.

Message Outline

1. The Feeling of Being "Nothing" Comes From Comparison

The verse speaks of what is "lowly" and of what "is not." For Nobuo Tanaka, feeling like nothing almost always happens in comparison: "I used to be able to lift this, now I can't," or we measure ourselves against others and lose heart.
Comparing one part with another produces two reflexes: an inferiority complex when we find ourselves lesser, a sense of superiority when we find ourselves better. "We spend our days between the two." Strong or weak, slow or fast, winning or losing, having or not having: this is the world's graduated ruler.
The Bible offers a ruler "without graduations." It does not compare the parts with each other; it looks at each part from the whole, from God.
This is what Kōjō Church sums up in one conviction: "All is well, in every circumstance," because all things work together for good for those who love God (Romans 8:28). With or without, strong or weak, sighted or not.
The preacher smiles at his own seminars. A woman told her friends: "There isn't much content, he always repeats the same thing. But afterward, you feel good." A neighbor from the church found his cassettes very useful: "You fall asleep right away." He draws a lesson from it: when someone is immersed in the atmosphere of "all is well in every circumstance," they are rested and want to come back, the way you return to a neighborhood pastry shop without being able to say why the cakes taste better.
Even in his seminars, he no longer asks "Are there questions, yes or no?" but "And what about questions?" A small change that steps out of yes-or-no logic to look at the whole.

2. When You Lose Your Title, You Think You Lose Your Worth

We discover what we can no longer do. With age, what we did yesterday becomes impossible. A man called "Mr. Director" at the office becomes, in retirement, "just somebody." And he feels he no longer has any value.
The preacher also points out that in Japan the leading cause of death among children and young people is not accidents but suicide. In a society that shouts "Be first, make an effort," the one who drops out collapses. "This is the question of our time."
He does not look down on those who move forward through competition or works: "That is good too." But there is something else: understanding, not in the head but with your whole being, that your life has value just as it is. "Then life changes."

3. "Deep Down, You Are a Good Child"

Nobuo Tanaka tells the story of Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, a very well-known figure of Japanese television. Her mother was a fervent Christian and a sought-after speaker; her father was a violinist in the NHK Symphony Orchestra. The mother had recognized in the spirit of Kōjō Church that "having or not having, strong or weak, able or unable, everything is in God's hand."
As a child, Tetsuko could not keep up with the others and had to leave the ordinary school. Her mother was convinced that God had given this child a life that no one else could live. She found her a school that, according to the preacher, welcomed children from very diverse backgrounds, including children with disabilities.
On arrival, the little girl talked with the principal, Sōsaku Kobayashi, for four hours. "Not four minutes, four hours!" He listened to her to the end. While everyone told her she was strange and worthless, he kept telling her: "Deep down, you are a good child."
At first it did not reach her. But by hearing it again and again, her personality was able to show all its color. She became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and helped poor countries. Behind this life, there was a mother's faith and this repeated word.
The preacher turns to the congregation and to those watching on screen: "You too, don't you feel like someone is telling you this?"

4. You Are Not a Product, You Are God's Workmanship

We were born of our parents, but the first Parent is the Creator. And we are not his "products." A product is mass-produced, cheap and in large quantities, then thrown away when its expiration date has passed. "Deep down, you are God's workmanship" (Ephesians 2:10).
This truth must be told to yourself again and again. Then, even when you disappoint yourself, even when you miss your own mark and no one notices you, you can stand firm. "We are small, but as God's workmanship we are carried by the one who made us."
What keeps us from entering this way of seeing? The preacher speaks of a "debt of the heart." Sin, he says, is not first the list of big or small faults that we compare. It is the state of being separated from what is true, from what is authentic.
No one can pay this debt, because we carry it from birth. Jesus Christ, God made man, the Son without stain and without debt, bore ours and died in our place to pay it. When you welcome him into your heart, you can learn to look at yourself with the eyes of the eternal God and Creator, and not with the eyes of competition.
He illustrates this with the story of a mother from the church and her son, who was losing his sight. At school they asked him: "Doesn't it make you angry that you're going blind?" He answered: "No." Later, gravely ill, without ever complaining, he said to his mother at his bedside: "Mom, don't cry. Everyone goes to heaven. The others have simply gone ahead." His mother and grandmother knew nothing about Christianity, but they told themselves: "I want to live a life like that," and they came to the church.
When someone finds this strange, the answer, in the speech of Yonezawa, is: "It's not strange. The one who thinks everything is lost is the one who finds it strange."

5. Rikyū's Black Bowl and Issa's Sparrow

Before the tea ceremony teachers present in the congregation, Nobuo Tanaka brings up Sen no Rikyū, who established the way of tea. In his day, the fine bowls came from China: perfect, smooth, symmetrical.
Rikyū asked a roof-tile craftsman to shape black bowls, irregular and rough. "That is true beauty. That is the best tea bowl." In a twisted bowl that everyone judged worthless, he saw a unique depth and made it the most precious utensil. "You too can be used. Twisted? That is precisely why it is good. And if you are not twisted, that is good too."
The poet Issa Kobayashi lost his mother as a child, then his children and his wife, lived in poverty and saw his house burn down. Yet it was from there that he wrote: "Come play with me, little sparrow with no parents."
Of course, we can look up to God in a prosperous life. But when you ask yourself why you alone suffer in your finances, your health or your relationships, hold on to this sentence: "It is when you feel powerless that you taste eternity." For it is when I am weak that I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).
The preacher suggests a concrete prayer. Instead of staying with an "invoice prayer" that demands, say: "Lord, if that world exists, show it to me," then: "I believe you have shown it to me, and I thank you." Pray this way in the morning, at noon and in the evening. Little by little, you will perceive what you could not see.

6. A Church That Lives the True Instead of Opposing

In Japan, Christians make up less than 1% of the population, and even that 1% is eroding. There are many respectable teachings, the preacher acknowledges, but "what remains is lived reality."
During the war, the government gathered all the Protestant churches into one union. Believers who refused to say that the emperor was God ("he is a respectable man, but he is not God") were imprisoned, and some died there. Kōjō Church itself saw its members locked in Yonezawa prison and was forcibly dissolved.
Nobuo Tanaka observes that Christian schools welcome and graduate thousands of students without a single one being baptized. He attributes this to a faith that has become very intellectual, then to an attempt to "do something concrete" through activism and opposition. He does not condemn social action: "That is a good thing." But it does not replace the heart.
His advice is simple: rather than criticizing your son, your daughter or your grandparents, simply live what you believe to be true. "You cannot change people or situations, but the truth within you spreads through you." This is, he says, the hundred-year story of Kōjō Church: a church that has known many failures, but that bears fruit.

7. A Birthday Card With Not a Word for Him

To close, the preacher moves "from explanation to reality." Every year, a woman from the church, from a family where faith has been passed down for several generations, gives him flowers and a card for his birthday. Usually she writes a few kind words about him.
This year, nothing about him. The whole card was about a church leader who runs a seminar every month. Forty years earlier, when she was young, this man frightened her: strict, he sent the young people home the moment the hour was up. Today he has "become another man." He speaks with a warm smile about the forgiveness received through the cross, and everyone leaves filled with warmth and peace.
Throughout the seminar she wondered what could have changed him, and she wished she too could lean on Jesus so that "the old things have passed away" and a new life begins (2 Corinthians 5:17). "Not just knowledge: someone whose whole being has been transformed appeared before me, and the one who changed him will change my life too."
"Not a word for my birthday," Nobuo Tanaka jokes. "What do you think? That is perfectly fine." For this is how the chapter ends: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:31).
His conclusion: let this word take root in you, "Whatever I am, deep down I am a good child; deep down I am God's workmanship, even if I cannot see it myself." It will transform you from the inside, down to your smile, and your complaints will become words of gratitude.

Key Takeaways

The feeling of being "nothing" comes from comparison. God looks at each part from the whole.
Your worth depends neither on your title, nor on your performance, nor on your age: your life has value just as it is.
You are not a mass-produced product, you are God's workmanship. This truth is received by repeating it to yourself again and again.
Like Rikyū's black bowl, what the world judges twisted can become precious in God's hands.
You cannot change others, but the truth that lives in you spreads through you. Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.

Personal Application

In what area do you compare yourself the most with others or with who you used to be?
What title, ability or success do you use as the measure of your worth?
Whom could you encourage this week by telling them, like that school principal: "Deep down, you are a good person"?
Are you ready to pray morning, noon and evening: "Lord, show me your way of seeing," then to give thanks, believing that he does it?
Whom do you tend to criticize, when you could simply live what you believe to be true in front of them?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 1 Corinthians 1:28 mean when it speaks of "the things that are not"?

For Nobuo Tanaka, feeling like "nothing" almost always comes from comparison: we measure ourselves against others or against who we used to be, and swing between an inferiority complex and a sense of superiority. God deliberately chooses what the world despises to show that he sees differently, from the whole and not from the part.

What is the difference between being a product and being God's workmanship?

A product is mass-produced, cheap, and loses its value at its expiration date. A work is unique. The preacher reminds us that you are not a product of the Creator but his workmanship, and that by repeating this truth to yourself you can stand firm even when you feel alone and powerless.

Why does Nobuo Tanaka speak about Sen no Rikyū's black tea bowl?

Sen no Rikyū preferred a black, irregular, rough bowl to the perfect Chinese bowls, and made it the most precious tea utensil. For the preacher, this is a picture of the gospel: what everyone judges worthless, God chooses and uses. You too, even dented, can be used by him.