It's 2 Corinthians 11, verse 30, and we go on to 12, chapter 12 and verse 10.
If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying.
In Damascus, the governor under King Arthas had the city of Damascus gathered in order to arrest me,
but I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.
I must go on boasting.
Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord.
I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven.
Whether it was in the body or out of the body, I do not know.
God knows.
And I know that this man, whether in the body or part from the body, I do not know, but God knows,
was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.
I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself except about my weaknesses.
Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool because I would be speaking the truth.
But I refrain so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say,
or because of these surpassingly great revelations.
Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh,
a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
But he said to me,
My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.
That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.
For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Thanks, Lucia. That's great.
I don't know whether you saw in the news this week the Lionesses returning to the UK after losing the Women's World Cup final.
Did you see that?
They came back to the airport, and a small group of people were there to greet them,
but they didn't get to see any of them because they skulked out of a back exit of the airport,
so that they didn't have to meet the crowds.
It's not really hard, I suppose, to see why they did it, is it?
If they'd won, of course, they would have walked through the airport holding the trophy high,
and everyone would have been cheering and celebrating.
But they didn't win.
They lost.
And while we love success, we hate weakness, don't we, and failure.
We're embarrassed for losers.
And it's not just the England women's football team, either, is it?
It works for us personally, too, doesn't it?
You know, I am very proud of the A that I got in A-level general studies.
I'm happy to talk to you about it, that general studies is a proper A-level, even if you don't think so.
And I am slightly embarrassed of the grade that I got in my geography, and I will avoid talking to you about that.
Or I will happily tell you that I passed my driving test on the very first attempt,
but I won't tell you that I've never passed a single music exam.
I'll tell you that I played cricket for the school and be very proud about that,
but I will not tell you that on one trial for another sport,
I was told, Palferman, you'll be never good enough to play for us.
I'm happy to post beautiful photos of my family on social media,
but I won't share that we don't always get on,
and that sometimes voices are raised, doors slam, tempers frayed,
and that's not everybody else in the family, that's just me.
You see, the point is, isn't it, we love strength and we hate weakness.
And in church life, it's just exactly the same as that.
So in Corinth, they loved a group called the Super Apostles.
These guys were the impressive public speakers.
These were the ones who would have had a blue tick on their Instagram account
and monetized YouTube channels.
They had nice clothes, they had funny stories,
they had big crowds every time they preached.
They were always talking about how impressive their Christian lives were,
how amazing their spiritual experiences were.
They were talking about the blessings that had come their way,
the good life that was theirs because Christ loves a winner,
and they despised Paul.
They pitied him, really.
Paul was apparently unimpressive physically.
He was probably short.
He didn't wear fine clothes.
He never took money.
They loved speakers who took money from them,
which I know is weird to us,
but it was a sign then that the speaker was important if he took your money,
and Paul always refused to take money.
He didn't speak in the rhetoric that the Greeks loved so much,
and while he wrote impressive letters,
the word was that in person he was a lot more disappointing than his letters.
But here's our point for this morning.
What we'll find in 2 Corinthians chapter 12
is that the Corinthians were wrong to think in that way about Paul.
They were wrong because the big truth of the universe
is not that God loves success in the way that we do,
but it's this, that weakness, not strength,
is the qualification for Christ's power.
Weakness, not strength, is the qualification for Christ's power.
In other words, our thinking on this is completely upside down.
It's back to front.
Amazing stories about spiritual experiences,
huge followings, World Cup trophies, lots of money,
even an A grade in general studies,
are neither essential signs of God's blessing
nor qualifications for God's blessing.
Instead, what we find is that it's an awareness of our weakness,
our unworthiness, our failures,
that is a sign of God's blessing and a qualification for it.
Now, let me try and show you that from the passage if I can.
So look down in your Bibles, chapter 11, verse 30.
What does Paul start with?
He says, if I must boast, he says,
listen, if I'm going to engage in the kind of language
that the super apostles are so engaged with,
if I'm going to join in with the boasting,
I will boast, he says, of things that show my weakness.
He says, turning it on its head,
boasting not in strength but in weaknesses.
And he immediately gives us an example.
Look down at verse 32.
In Damascus, the governor under King Aratas
had the city of the Damasians guarded in order to arrest me,
but I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall
and slipped through his hands.
Here he goes, I'm going to boast for you.
Let me tell you of a great spiritual experience I've had.
I ran away, he said.
I was so scared, I ran away.
It's a sign of weakness, isn't it?
I was hidden in a basket, dropped from the wall and legged it.
That doesn't sound impressive, does it?
But that's my point, says Paul.
Let me tell you about my weakness, he says.
Then in chapter 12, he carries on.
But now he talks as if he's talking about somebody else, doesn't he?
He is really talking about himself here,
but he talks in the third person about himself
to make this same point about boasting.
See, it's not that Paul hasn't had great spiritual experiences.
He has had them, he's just not talking about them.
See, he says that he knows a man who was, which was him,
caught up into the third heaven, verse 2.
The third heaven being where God is.
The first heaven being the atmosphere,
the second being space, and the third where God dwells.
Not that Paul's teaching science, it's just a turn of phrase.
But the point is, says Paul,
I've had some incredible spiritual experiences,
but I'm not going to boast about them.
In fact, I won't even speak about them.
I may not tell them, verse 4.
Instead, when I tell them,
I'm going to tell you them in the third person,
just to make this point.
Because if I'm going to talk in the first person,
verse 5, I'm going to boast about my weakness.
And why does he do that?
Well, because, verse 6,
even though these stories of great experiences are true,
still, verse 6, what do you say?
I refrain so that no one will think more of me
than is warranted by what I do or say.
It's just worth pausing on that, isn't it?
Just to make sure we know what Paul is saying.
I refrain so that no one will think more of me
than is warranted by what I do or say.
Paul is really concerned here, isn't he?
That his reputation amongst the Corinthians
is based on his words and his actions.
Not an impression of him that they've had
from the stories that he tells
about experiences that he's had,
whether they have no idea whether those are true or not.
If Paul were writing today, he'd say,
listen, I want you to know the real me.
I want you to know the real me.
Not the Instagram me, but the real me.
I want you to know me not by a projection
that I've put out there
of what I'd like you to think about me,
not by a bunch of edited photos
of a tidy flat or a sunset holiday
or a zen moment in a caravan by a Swiss mountain.
No, I want you to know me
by what I actually say and do.
My life is not the fake life of an influencer,
the half million followers,
L'Oreal sponsored super apostle.
That's not me.
I'm real, says Paul, not fake.
Look at what I've done.
Listen to what I say.
I'm not interested in projecting
an impression outside of my words and actions.
Now, let me just say here in passing,
our world is crying out for that kind of honesty, isn't it?
We are, I think, becoming more and more fed up
with the fake and the pretend.
You know, the celebrity who pretends
to be happily married whilst it turns out
paying to have sex with somebody else.
It makes us all the more cynical all the time.
And Paul says, listen, that's not me.
You know, if you want to know my weaknesses,
says Paul, you want to know about my weaknesses?
Just listen to me because I'll tell you them.
You want to know what I'm like?
I'll tell you.
You want to know what I do?
Watch me.
You'll see it.
If you look down again at the passage,
you'll see that this realness of Paul,
if you like, is not something
that he's just arrived at himself.
It has, in a sense, been imposed on him by God.
Probably better to say taught to him by God.
Look at verse seven.
Let me read verses seven and eight to you again.
Paul writes this,
therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited,
conceited, literally, I guess,
it would be kind of boasting
in the way the super apostles boast.
Therefore, in order to keep me
from becoming conceited,
I was given a thorn in my flesh,
a messenger of Satan to torment me.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord
to take it away from me.
Now, we have no idea, really,
what this thorn in the flesh was for Paul.
It could have been a physical illness.
It might even have been a difficult relationship,
perhaps even a difficult relationship
with the Corinthian church themselves.
But what we do know is that it is something wicked
and difficult, a thorn that's a messenger of Satan,
tormenting him, he says.
So much so that he's longed to get rid of it
and has prayed, and not just prayed,
but pleaded with the Lord to take it away.
But God says no.
God says no.
Which means, and I think this blows the categories
of lots of people's understanding
of the Christian life.
It means, doesn't it, that Paul has been
deliberately made weak by God.
God intends Paul to be weak,
allowing Satan to torment him with a thorn.
And why?
Why would God do such a thing to his servant?
Is God cruel?
Does he love hurting people?
Well, no.
Instead, it's so that Paul might understand
and know the truth of Jesus' words in verse nine,
when Jesus says,
my grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness.
In other words, known, felt, expressed,
even tormenting weakness,
is the canvas for God's power, for Christ's power.
It's the foundation of Christ's work in Paul's life.
So much so that Paul concludes in verse nine,
therefore, I will boast all the more gladly
about my weaknesses,
so that Christ's power may rest on me.
That is why, for Christ's sake,
literally, I delight in,
I think the ESV puts, I'm content with.
It's not just I put up with.
It's actually I am happy with.
I am delighting in weaknesses,
in insults, in hardships,
in persecutions, in difficulties,
for when I am weak, then I am strong.
See, here's our point for this morning.
Weakness, not strength,
is the qualification for Christ's power.
And because that's true,
God will even allow Satan
to attack his servants,
to weaken them,
so that he can teach it to them,
and they can experience this power.
This is how one commentary
summarizes this passage.
It says this,
some people tell us
that as Christians,
we have a right to be healed,
and that if we're sick and not healed,
there must be something
spiritually wrong with us.
It is not so.
There is an expectation of suffering
in the Christian life.
Of course, we pray for relief,
but if our prayers are persistently declined,
then we must eventually conclude
that God is saying to us,
you are more useful to me
with suffering than without it.
Now, I want to come on
and say some things
about how this applies to us
as a church,
but before I do that,
I want to try and be
a good pastor this morning to you
if you're suffering.
I know that for a number of you here,
and especially for those,
I guess, following on Zoom
who are stuck at home this morning,
life is particularly tough.
I was talking to one church member this week
who was just telling me
of persistent, unexplained,
physical pain,
a real thorn in the flesh.
Now, listen,
nothing in this passage this morning
is trying to minimize
the reality of that pain.
This isn't victory Christianity,
you know,
where we pretend that nothing hurts.
You know,
oh, I've lost an arm.
Praise the Lord,
I've got another one.
Oh, I've lost that too.
Praise the Lord,
I've got two legs.
No, it's not that, is it?
No, thorns here are satanic tormentors,
right?
They are painful and hard and difficult,
and the pain is real,
and it's to be expressed.
Rather, here, I think,
is the point
that as well as looking for relief
from the suffering,
we do look for relief,
don't we,
from our suffering.
That's natural,
and we should do it.
We look for relief from our suffering,
but God may or may not grant us
the relief that we look for.
What we should also look for
at the same time
is for grace in the suffering
and power to face the suffering.
And we know, don't we,
that God will provide us with that.
In other words,
it's often in our moments
of greatest pain
that we know most clearly
the love and power of Christ.
It's when others betray us
and let us down
that we know most clearly
the faithfulness
of the Lord Jesus.
It's at moments
of great weakness
when we rely most heavily
on God's grace,
which makes us stronger
than we ever were
without the suffering.
You know,
you might be suffering
this morning
in whatever way
that might be.
It might be physically,
it might be emotionally,
it might just be
a circumstance in your life.
Listen, don't be afraid
to join Paul
in crying out to God
and pleading with him,
please take this away from me.
But know that God's purpose
is not always
to bring relief
from suffering,
but it is always
to provide grace
and power
in suffering.
Because,
why?
Weakness,
not strength,
is the qualification
for Christ's power.
Now,
if that's something
that you're particularly
struggling with,
please come and talk to me
at the end.
I'd love to talk with you
and pray with you
more about that.
But let's think about
some ways that this might
apply to our church corporately.
I've got three brief points
as we finish off this morning.
First one is this,
when God is at work,
we should expect
to be more,
not less,
more,
not less,
conscious of our weakness.
I wonder if it's maybe
just me that thinks like this,
but I think it's been
my assumption
for most of my Christian life
that the more you grow
as a Christian,
the stronger you will feel.
Right?
I think I've assumed
in my Christian life
that the mature Christian
must spend most of their time
feeling sorted.
You know,
they might have a battle
with sin,
but it's a very low-level battle
that they win every day
and every moment.
They're successful all the time.
You know,
they're not fighting
for godly thoughts
because their brain
somehow has become hardwired
to think in a godly way.
You know,
they don't doubt,
they don't worry,
they don't feel anxious
in the face of death.
They're victorious
all the time.
But then you read passages
like this one
and you think,
well,
wait a minute,
that's perhaps not right.
Maybe the truth is
if Paul is expressing
Christian growth here
that as I grow as a Christian,
I won't begin to feel stronger,
but I'll begin to feel weaker
even as I grow as a Christian.
The more I grow,
the more I'll recognize
the limitations
on my understanding.
The more I grow as a Christian,
the more I'll know
I don't know.
The more I grow as a Christian,
the more I'll know
I can't be trusted in myself.
The more I grow as a Christian,
the more I know
that my desires
and my longings
given half the chance
would kill my Christian life
and destroy my witness.
That's certainly
Paul's experience,
isn't it?
It will be ours too,
individually and corporately.
So individually,
I really hope and pray
that church revitalization
means a personal revitalization
for all of us
in our Christian lives.
But we mustn't expect
that to come
by making us more self-reliant
and more impressive
to those around us.
The opposite will be true.
And for us as a church,
if our church grows
in strength and maturity,
we can expect
that it will be marked
by a collective appreciation
of our weakness,
not our strength.
Are you ready for that?
In fact,
so essential
is that partnership
that we can expect God
to put things
in our way
as a church
that will make us
know our weakness
and feel it more acutely.
Whether that be
financial hardship,
illness,
trouble,
a leaking roof,
false accusations,
whatever it might be.
Because the road up
is the road down,
isn't it?
And so like Paul,
we're to learn
to delight in those things.
I don't like telling
too many stories
about Egberth,
which is where we were before.
I think sometimes
pastors who bang on
where they were before
can give a wrong impression.
But if you'll forgive me
for one story,
let me tell you one now.
I think it makes
this point really well.
Two years before COVID,
we moved our church
into a local school.
The local school
had a big car park
and some outdoor space
for the kids
to run around in,
more rooms for Sunday school.
So it seemed to make
a lot of sense
for us to move
from the smaller building
that we're in
to this bigger school building.
What became very clear
as we started meeting there
was that the neighbours
hated us.
They were cross
with the school
for allowing people
to use the building
on a Sunday
because it made extra traffic
on their street
and people walking
down their road
and they didn't like that.
The fact that we were
a church
made it even more difficult
because they hated
the idea of a church
meeting in the local school.
So on a Sunday morning,
we would be greeted
coming to church
by protesters,
people with placards,
some of them
with my name on them,
telling people
on their way into church,
your pastor's a liar,
don't trust him.
They parked their cars
so that we couldn't
quite get down the street.
You had to go
really, really slowly.
On a particularly bad week,
the local police
had to escort me
off the premises
because they were
waiting outside
to hassle me
on my way out.
And all of a sudden,
our church,
which we thought
everybody loved,
we realized
that we were hated.
We weren't strong.
We're weak.
We're not loved.
We're disliked.
We're not influential.
We're disregarded.
And what was
the effect of that?
What do you think
the effect of that
was on our local church?
Well, let me tell you this.
Amazingly,
more people were converted
in the two years
that we were meeting
in that school
than any other time
in my pastorate there.
A bunch of students
turned up
from one of the local universities
and two of them
were just converted
just by sitting
and listening to the preaching
week in, week out.
Another guy came to me
in tears
after I preached
a not very good sermon,
I don't think,
on Matthew 26.
He came to me
after the sermon,
tears flowing down his face.
He'd just become a Christian.
It's weird, isn't it?
It turns out
that it's not the strength
of the church
but the weakness
of the church.
as we see
our corporate reliance
on Christ
and leaning on him
so this reversal happens.
Are you ready for that?
Secondly,
success won't be measured
on a graph.
This, of course,
is how all success
is normally measured.
You have a graph
of growth, don't you?
Growth in money,
growth in customers,
growth in profit.
But in church life
it's not quite the same.
Of course,
we do long,
don't we,
for this building
to become that rammed
full of people
who've just come
to know the Lord Jesus.
I'm praying for that.
I'm praying that we have
to open the balcony soon,
that Jeff has to move
his ladders, right?
I long for that.
That's what we're praying for.
But it might not happen.
We might be successful
and that not happen
because success
in 2 Corinthians 12,
success for us
as a church
is not so much
growth in numbers
as it is growth
in reliance
and confidence
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let me try and explain
why that's the case.
Let me ask you a question.
Why do you think it is
that Paul thinks
human weakness
experiences Christ's power?
Think about that.
Why does Paul think
human weakness
experiences Christ's power?
Now, there might be
a lot of reasons,
mightn't there?
Perhaps he thinks
that weakness
in some sense
is a key
that unlocks
Christ's power.
I don't think
that's quite right.
I mean, the Bible
does say that God
opposes the proud
but gives grace
to the humble
but it's not
that their humility
itself is the key
that unlocks the door,
is it?
I don't think
it's that at all.
It might be
that human weakness
makes us especially
reliant on Christ's strength,
you know,
that we know
we can't do
so we rely on Christ.
And I think that's true
to a sense, isn't it?
But there's something
more to it than that.
Why is it that
human weakness
is the key
to experiencing
Christ's power?
What is it?
Well, I think it's this.
It's because it is
in human weakness
that Christ saves
his people.
This is the story
of the Bible, right?
It is God the Father,
Son and Spirit
sending the Son
into the world
that they made
in order to save
a people for himself.
How does the Son say
as he comes
into the world
in which he's made?
He doesn't come
in a blaze of glory,
does he?
on a great chariot
without riders.
No, he comes
as a baby
into a manger,
life hanging
in the balance.
And how does he save?
Well, faces terrible
opposition before
dying on a cross
as a sacrifice
for our sins
so that we can be forgiven.
there hanging naked
on the cross,
the power of God
takes the weakness
of humanity
and conquers humanity's
greatest opponents,
death, sin, the devil.
Of course, Paul rejoices
in weakness.
Of course, we can't measure
success on a graph
because weakness
is essentially
Christ-likeness,
isn't it?
And weakness
where we really appreciate
the power of God
because when we come
to the point
that we can't do anything,
when we come to the point
of knowing,
I'm so weak,
I can't do anything,
we've arrived at the point
at which Christ
has done everything.
Do you understand?
Christ takes human weakness
at which point
we are right
at the very end
of ourselves
and unable to do anything
to save ourselves
or help ourselves.
Christ is at that
very same point
and is able to conquer
everything that stands
in our way.
Isn't that incredible?
And so, of course,
human weakness
is the key
to experiencing
the power of Christ
because that's where
the power of Christ
is met.
Listen, this morning,
if you've never
thought about that,
if you've never understood
Christ's work in that way,
if you thought
that being a Christian
is about taking out
a spiritual insurance policy
that you cash in
when you die,
or maybe if you thought
being a Christian
is about having
lots of answers
to the big questions
in life
so that you're
kind of smart,
well, let me invite
you to meet Jesus
for the first time
off the pages
of the Bible.
He comes to you
in the weakness
of human flesh,
in the frailty
of a human body,
blood stained
and sacrificed
for our sin,
and he says,
listen,
in my weakness
darkness.
I have the power
to rescue
and save you
for all eternity.
Turn to me.
Come to me.
Finally then,
and more briefly,
we will avoid
being over-spiritual.
Now, I want to
be careful
how I put this,
but I think
there's an important sense
in which we must
follow Paul's example
in the way
that we speak.
Paul is very conscious
that he doesn't want
people to think
of him in a certain way
because of what he says
about his own
personal spiritual experiences.
He's very,
very careful
not to market himself.
He really doesn't
want to appear
as someone
who he's not.
He doesn't want
people thinking
that he is more
than he really is.
He wants his words
and his actions
to speak for themselves,
not to build up
an impression of him,
not spiritually
talking himself up,
but being real
and honest.
And so for us,
I think it's possible,
isn't it,
for us in church life,
I'm sure you've met
people like this
who talk a really
good game.
This is certainly
the thing,
I think in church
youth groups
it can be the case,
can't it?
You know,
young people
are having their
hands in the air
while they're singing,
having an awesome
spiritual experience.
They have all the answers,
the right answers
in the Bible study,
but then really
as they walk out there
they know that's not
really the Christian life
that they're living.
Gives the impression
of looking like
a serious Christian,
but not really.
It's not just young
people,
is it?
Leaders will tell you
when they,
oh,
this is what I was
reading in my
devotions this morning
for a couple of hours.
What they won't tell you
is that they struggle
to have them.
People will tell you
that they're praying
for you,
but they won't never
tell you is that
they forgot to pray
for you.
People will give you
spiritual sounding advice
that they blatantly
ignore for themselves.
so much so that
our spiritual lives
can take on
a sort of unreality
that we step
through those doors
at the back of church
and we pretend
to be someone
we're not really
the rest of the week.
We mustn't be like that
because actually
it's our weakness
and our struggles
where we meet Christ.
I worked for a few years
for a church
which was in a city centre
with lots of students.
We had a visit
from an American pastor
who had got to know
one of the other pastors
of the church
at a conference
and said come to visit.
I spoke to him
after the morning service
and said oh
what did you think to that?
And he looked at me
a bit puzzled
and he goes well
the church isn't as big
as I thought it was.
What turned out
to be the case
is that the other pastor
had been talking up
the church so much
this guy thought
it was quite an amazing place
and then came
and the reality
was quite a lot
more disappointing.
Now that's a shame
isn't it?
Because the truth is
we don't want to give
an impression
that's better
than the reality do we?
We want to be real
and honest
and honest about
our weaknesses
because we just don't
need to be like that.
It's not just that
we should not be like that
we don't need
to be like that do we?
It's not just that
we should not create
a false impression
it's that we don't need to.
Why?
Because the gospel
has liberated you
from all of that nonsense.
The gospel of Christ's power
and human weakness
has liberated us
from the need
to always give
a good impression.
Okay you've found
another way
that we're weak
as a church.
Praise the Lord.
Christ works
in weak churches.
The gospel
is great news
for weak people.
We don't need
to desire
to appear
more holy
than we really are
because Christ's power
in my weakness
means that perhaps
for the very first time
you and I
can be real people
really honest
with one another.
This is not a performance
this morning.
We're not putting on a show.
This is us
with all of our weakness
not banging on
about how great we are
but instead
knowing with the apostle Paul
that it's not strength
but weakness
that qualifies us
for the power of Christ.
That is why
for Christ's sake
we delight in weakness
in insults
in hardships
in persecutions
in difficulties
for when we are weak
then we are strong.
Let me pray.
Heavenly Father
we want to ask
for your forgiveness
for where we've
pretended
to be stronger
than we really are.
We acknowledge
Lord
that we've never
fooled you
for a moment.
We might have
tricked others
but we've never
fooled you.
So Lord
we come to you
this morning
in all of our weakness
whether that's
because of
physical suffering
that we're facing
or difficulties
or hardships.
We come to you
in all of that weakness
saying that we find it
very hard to say
that we delight in it
but we want to know
the power of Christ
resting on us.
We want to know
that when we are weak
we are strong
because Christ
meets us
in our weakness
because in great
human weakness
he died on the cross
with the power
to save us
from all of our sin
and liberate us
for a world remade
by your power
and your glory
for all eternity.
So we say together
come Lord Jesus
and pray in his name.
Amen.