I'm going to invite one of our elders, Hamish Alexander, to come and to read to us from the Scriptures from 2 Corinthians chapter 12.
And I know that this man was caught up into paradise.
Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know.
God knows.
And he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.
On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.
Though if it should be wished to boast, I would not be as a fool, for I would be speaking the truth.
But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me.
So to keep me from becoming conceited, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn has given me in the flesh.
A messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being conceited.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
For the sake of Christ then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Amen.
It's great to be with you this morning.
A little disorienting being up high like this.
I was talking with someone on the way in.
It seems like preaching from down there is more of a Corey problem.
Maybe I should be down there since I'm a little taller.
But, you know, speaking of which, we're talking today about power and weakness.
And it's amazing how, like, the lengths that we will go to to avoid weakness or avoiding appearing weak.
For instance, we went to a movie yesterday at the cinema, and there was a time where I almost fell asleep.
And, you know, that person who can't admit that they fell asleep during the cinema or whatever,
it's like, they're trying to deny their weakness, right?
Or maybe it's trying to cover up a mistake or telling a half-truth.
Or maybe you've been in the gym and haven't been able to complete a set like you thought you would.
And you got up and you were, like, looking around to see if anyone noticed that you weren't actually as strong as you thought you were.
Or maybe you've even seen someone on the football pitch faking an injury in order to excuse a failure that has happened.
And just recently, we were in Greece with some friends, and Kelly handed me a tin of beans to open up.
She's like, I can't get this open. Can you open it up?
And I'm like, I can't get it open.
So we handed it to our friend, and she opened it right up.
And, of course, I said, I must have loosened it for you, right?
Because we don't like to appear weak.
The message that we pick up early in life is weakness is bad.
I can't show my weakness.
I must hide it.
So we will appeal to our strengths in order to prove ourselves or our trustworthiness or our dependability.
And which is actually proving your strength is actually the passage or the context for our passage today in 2 Corinthians.
The theme of the whole letter of 2 Corinthians is that through Paul's weakness and suffering,
the believers there have been comforted, and the gospel has been spread.
However, there were some false apostles that had come through,
and they were claiming to be superior to Paul and why you should listen to them instead of Paul.
So they're boasting in how bold they are, how much authority they have, how gifted they are,
how they should be respected.
And Paul sarcastically calls them the super apostles.
He refers to them as that in a couple of verses.
So when Paul's coming to this passage, and I don't know if you picked up on it,
but there were a few times he talked about boasting,
about boasting in the Lord or boasting in strengths or boasting in weaknesses.
And what he's saying as he's coming to the passage, he's like,
it's foolish that I should have to do this.
Like, I really don't like the thought of boasting.
It's ridiculous that I'm having to go there.
But if we're going to talk about who can boast, I'm going to be honest with you,
and I will speak plainly with you.
And he goes on and describes an event.
And at first he says, a man in Christ.
He didn't say it was himself until later on.
But he goes on to describe an event where he was called up into the presence of God.
This happened about 14 years earlier before Paul had any influence in the church.
And so he's kind of like a nobody at this point when it happened,
but he also hasn't spoken to people about it.
But ultimately, this event, instead of pushing him into an arrogance or trying to claim,
hey, I've been in the presence of God.
Look how much authority I have as a prophet or whatever.
Instead, he keeps it to himself and comes to our passage and starts talking about how this actually pushed him into weakness.
So this morning, what we're going to talk about is the power of weakness.
And since Corey's not here, and I thought I would honor him by having three points.
The first point is we can't avoid weakness.
The second point is we shouldn't try to avoid weakness.
And the third point is we must embrace weakness.
And you may be like, those sound very similar.
They are.
But let's dive in.
The first thing, we can't avoid weakness.
One of the things that we understand from reading the whole of Scripture
is that we were actually created to be dependent on God and interdependent with each other.
So from the very beginning, we lacked strength and ability to do everything on our own.
It was God's intention as his creation for us to be in a state of dependence.
In fact, in Genesis 2, verse 18, we have that verse we've probably all heard.
It says,
Then the Lord God said,
It is not good that the man should be alone.
I will make a helper fit for him.
This word helper actually means one who supplies strength
in the area that is lacking in the one that is helped.
In other words, Adam needed help right away.
And so God created someone who would compliment him
that they would be interdependent with one another.
So weakness actually comes before the fall.
Weakness is not sinful or necessarily a result of sin.
That dependence on God and interdependence with one another
was meant from the beginning.
And if we think about weakness,
we can imagine some scenarios where good things come from weakness.
I mentioned working out in the gym.
If you work out in the gym,
you may know that reaching the point of failure,
is the way they talk about it,
is when the real work is beginning to happen,
when muscle is being built.
But it comes after facing weakness.
I mentioned earlier,
but in this letter,
Paul is talking about that it's our weakness
that allowed us to be comforted by God.
This is chapter one.
And then since we were comforted by God,
we can then comfort one another.
So through weakness,
God uses us to minister to one another.
And as we know,
the heart of the Bible's message
has to do with weakness.
How Christ let go of his authority,
of his glory,
and embraced weakness to become a man
so that he could die for our sins.
He rejected power
and became the Lamb of God
so that we could have life.
It's literally how we become a follower of Christ.
Romans 5, 6 says,
for while we were still weak,
at the right time,
Christ died for the ungodly.
A great hymn that we sing sometimes,
Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy.
It says,
all the fitness he requires
is to feel your need of him.
It is in weakness that we find life.
It is in weakness that we find strength.
We see that throughout the whole of the Bible.
But yet,
we still try to avoid weakness.
So the first point,
we can't avoid weakness.
The second point,
we shouldn't try to avoid weakness.
Again,
this is very similar,
but if you look throughout
all of redemption history,
you see how God has chosen the weak things
in order to accomplish his purposes
and to show his strength.
God usually didn't choose
the big powerful person
or the big powerful tribe,
country, nation.
In fact,
when he says he chose Israel
is because they were least
among all the nations.
Whether it was Abraham,
Jacob,
Moses,
whoever,
God was working through weakness.
We know stories of Gideon
where in fighting the Midianites,
God kind of trimmed down the army
from 32,000 to 300
so that God's perfect strength
could be made known.
We see in David and Goliath,
that famous story we all know,
that David battles,
battles a battle-tested,
hardened giant.
And he says,
this battle belongs to the Lord
and defeats him with a sling.
Obviously,
we've mentioned this,
but the ultimate example
of not avoiding weakness
was Jesus,
where he says in Matthew 20,
verses 26-28,
it shall not be so among you,
but whoever would be great among you
must be your servant,
and whoever would be first among you
must be your slave.
Even the Son of Man
came not to be served,
but to serve,
and to give his life
as a ransom for many.
That's one of the themes
of Jesus' message on earth
was, hey,
as I have served you,
so you must serve one another.
You must let go
of what you think
is your strength
in order to follow me.
And then Paul says
in the next chapter
of the book
that we're looking at,
chapter 13,
verse 4,
that Christ was crucified
in weakness,
but lives by the power of God.
This is a theme
that we see
throughout the whole Bible.
We know this.
I'm not telling you
anything new
if you've grown up in church
or familiar at all
with Scripture,
but yet we still
try to avoid weakness.
So we shouldn't try
to avoid weakness.
And that leads
to the third point,
and this is where
we'll camp out,
is we must embrace weakness.
If it's true
that we are created dependent,
we're going to be weak,
why is it that we spend
so much time,
so much energy,
so much thought,
avoiding weakness.
And now,
I'm not advocating
that you should go
back to your CV
and start, you know,
trying to demonstrate
to a potential employer
of how weak
and undependable you are,
anything like that.
I'm not saying
we glorify weakness
so that it's like,
man, being weak
is the best, you know.
I'm not saying
anything like that.
But what I'm saying is,
it is God's intention
for us to understand
how to live
from His strength
through our weakness.
So, let's look
at our passage today.
In verse 7,
He says,
to keep me
from being conceited
because of the surpassing
greatness of the revelations.
He actually says this twice,
to keep me
from being conceited.
And I think we just need,
because He repeats this,
I think we need to stop
really quickly
and just understand
and acknowledge
there is a reality
where knowledge about Jesus
or an experience with Him
might lead us
to arrogance,
to pride.
That's the opposite effect
it's supposed to have,
but we do see
that because of our sin
we often become judgmental
or overly critical
or feel superior to others.
Arrogant instead of humble
because of knowledge about Jesus.
Or maybe it's an experience
we had with Jesus.
So there is a danger.
I mean, even His own disciples
were arguing about
who is going to be
the greatest in the kingdom.
I mean, you read that
and you're like,
are you paying attention at all
to what Jesus is saying?
But yet,
that is the inclination
of our hearts
to avoid weakness
to which ultimately
causes us to avoid strength.
But throughout church history,
we know there have been those
who have used Jesus
to try to gain power.
And this should not be.
The glories of Christ
should humble us,
but sin in us is strong.
So we must fight against this.
So he says,
to keep me from becoming conceited
because of this great experience
I had in the heavens,
a thorn was given to me
in the flesh.
Now we've heard,
probably heard about this,
a thorn in the flesh.
And the reality is
we don't know what this is.
Many think it might be
a physical ailment.
After having some back problems
a week ago,
I'm like,
it could be a back problem.
That was really bad.
That was hard.
Some think it might be eyesight,
a bad eyesight
because of some things
that are said
in some other letters.
Could it have been migraines,
some have suggested.
Some think it's a physical ailment,
but then some have suggested
because of all the stress
he talks about
and different things,
it might have been
a psychological ailment.
Whatever it was,
it was a big struggle.
And because he doesn't tell us
exactly what it is,
we can kind of fill in the blank there
and say,
okay, I understand
what you're talking about.
I know what it's like
to have a thorn in the flesh.
That thing that makes me feel weak
and vulnerable
and makes me feel really frustrated.
Something that we've asked
the Lord to take away
and he has yet to do that.
We can understand that
because Paul doesn't describe
specifically what he's talking about.
Now we might look at verse 10
and where he says,
for the sake of Christ,
then I'm content with weaknesses,
insults, hardships,
persecutions, calamities.
You know, we might say,
okay, it might fit
into one of those categories.
When you start looking
at what some of these words mean,
like the word calamities,
it means to be in a narrow space.
We would use the phrase
like to be between a rock
and a hard place.
We all understand that
or understand what hardships are,
which is basically
something outside of us
is making things really difficult,
putting pressure on me.
Some of us have faced persecution.
We all know what it's like
to be insulted.
But we understand this idea
of weakness.
And whatever it is,
whatever this thorn in the flesh was,
it was sent to harass Paul,
he says.
This word harass
literally means to torment
or to strike with the fist.
whatever it was,
it was bad.
And Paul felt pretty beat up about it.
And in verse 7,
he calls it a messenger of Satan.
Now, we understand
that a messenger carries a message.
And I think that helps us
to understand this passage.
So when we have something
that makes us feel weak
or vulnerable
or frustrated,
that thorn in the flesh,
there are two messages
that we could be listening to.
That first message
would be the message of Satan,
which is all throughout Scripture
we've seen
where he tries to tempt us
and deceive us
and to think that God doesn't love you.
He wants to keep you down.
Don't you think you know better
than God does?
If God really loved you,
wouldn't he grant this for you?
That message of Satan
that came in the garden,
literally,
God had said to Adam,
you can eat of all the fruit
of all the trees
except this one tree.
And Satan comes in
and has him focusing
on this one tree
and said,
if God really loved you,
he would let you eat
of that one too.
Instead,
he doesn't know
what's best for you.
He knows that when you eat it,
you will become like him,
knowing good and evil.
The message of Satan
is God does not love you.
He does not have a plan for you.
And he is withholding
something great from you.
He wants us to doubt God's love
and good plan for our lives.
And when we're feeling
a thorn in the flesh,
that's one message
that we are tempted to believe.
But the second message
comes from God.
That when we have
that thorn in the flesh,
something that makes us feel
weak, vulnerable, frustrated,
that says,
my grace is sufficient for you.
My grace is enough.
It can satisfy your longings.
My grace will provide
all that you need.
I'm giving you
all that you really need
and it is good for you.
So hear what God's saying.
I'm giving you my riches.
I'm giving you all that you need
to face the problems
that you're facing today.
I'm giving you
the very power of Christ
to strengthen you.
My grace is sufficient for you.
But we're tempted
to believe the other message.
So Paul's saying,
a messenger of Satan
was given to me.
A thorn in the flesh
that came to harass me.
And he heard this message
from Satan,
but then he heard
this message from God.
Which message
are we going to listen to?
But Paul says in verse 8,
three times I pleaded
with the Lord about this.
Three times I asked God
to take this away.
And the Lord said,
no, I'm not going to take it away.
Commentators will kind of tell us
that this echoes Jesus in the garden.
We know how he came three times
praying, saying,
Lord, if it be your will,
let this hour pass for me.
Let this cup be taken away from me.
And each time God said,
no, you must face this.
When we're suffering,
good meaning, well-meaning people
will tell us things like,
hey, the situation's going to change.
This will get better.
We know this is going to go away.
But what if it doesn't?
What if it doesn't go away?
What message will you believe?
Jesus's words from Matthew chapter 7,
where he says,
who among you,
when a son asks for bread,
will give him a stone?
Or when he asks for a fish,
will give him a snake?
If you being evil,
know how to give good gifts
to your children,
how much more will your heavenly father
give what is good
to those who ask him?
Are Jesus's words true to us?
That he is a good father?
Not giving us a stone or a snake,
but is giving what is good
to his children when they ask.
Do you believe that?
When we have a thorn in the flesh,
it is tough to believe it.
We've all been there.
As I'm talking about a thorn in the flesh,
you probably have something
that is going through your mind
and where we have pleaded with the Lord
to take it away.
And when we think about our pleading
and we're hearing a no,
we shouldn't be hearing a harsh voice.
Like a lot of times it's like,
no, I'm not going to do this.
Stop asking.
But that's not God.
Instead, it's more like
the loving, gentle father saying,
not right now, sweetie.
Not yet, buddy.
I'm Abba, father,
and I give what is good.
You have to trust me.
I'm going to give you something better.
I'm going to give you my power
so that you can thrive despite this thorn.
And this will deepen our relationship
and you will know me more.
And also, you will be able to comfort others
with the comfort that I'm comforting you with right now.
God says, my grace is enough.
It is all you need.
And then verse 9, Paul goes on to say
that the message that he got was,
my grace is sufficient
for my power is made perfect in weakness.
When we are weak,
it allows God's strength
to actually work through us
and to put his strength on display.
We already named some examples of that
with Gideon and David and Christ.
And one of my favorite examples
that gets me through a lot of hard times
is from 2 Chronicles chapter 20
when King Jehoshaphat comes before the Lord.
A great army has come against him.
And he says in verse 12,
for we are powerless
against this great horde
that is coming against us.
We do not know what to do,
but our eyes are on you.
He then sends out the worship team
ahead of the army.
And the Ammonites fight against themselves
and destroy themselves.
That'd be like us putting Don in the band
out in front of everybody
and say, hey, lead the way.
God did it.
We don't know what to do,
but our eyes are on you.
For when I am weak,
I am strong.
Paul Tripp, in his great devotional book,
New Morning Mercies,
he addresses this idea of weakness
that was really ministered to me recently.
He says, I don't want to be confused
or unready to feel unqualified
or hold others back.
I don't like it when it seems
that there are things I should know
and I don't know.
I don't want to let myself
or others down.
But your weakness is not the great danger
that you think it is.
Rather, the great danger
is your delusion of strength.
Because if you think you're strong,
then you don't seek the help
that you desperately need
from the one who is the ultimate source
of strength of every kind.
For when I am weak,
then I am strong.
So Paul goes on to say,
therefore, let's read verse 9.
Therefore, I will boast
all the more gladly of my weaknesses
so that the power of Christ
may rest upon me.
He says, I'll do this all the more gladly.
This word gladly is actually
where we get the word hedonism, joy.
He's saying, when I embrace my weaknesses,
that's when the power of Christ
is made perfect in me.
It's emptying ourselves
of our self-sufficiency
so that we can be filled
with the power of Christ.
It means that I can find joy
in the middle of suffering,
in the midst of weakness.
Because it's then that Christ's power
rests upon us.
And I realize,
if you're going through suffering,
I realize you read something like this
and you're like,
this sounds like someone
who hasn't suffered before.
But we know Paul suffered
more than we can imagine.
I mean, I don't think we understand
when it talks about him being lost at sea
a couple of times.
I don't think we fathom
how terrible that is.
This is someone who has known
great, great suffering.
But he's saying we can rejoice.
We can be glad about our weaknesses
when these things come
because it allows the power of Christ
to rest upon me.
This word rest literally means
to pitch a tent or to tabernacle.
And one commentator said
that this is likely Paul drawing
on the Old Testament image
of the glory of God
coming to rest on the tabernacle.
Think of that imagery.
The power of Christ
coming to rest on you
in the middle of your weakness
when you need it most.
Gets rid of all self-sufficiency
and allows us to rely
on his sufficient grace.
We can handle the thorn
because Christ's power and presence
comes to settle on us,
to rest on us.
We can be content
with weaknesses, insults,
hardships, persecutions,
and calamities.
And again, this is not glorifying weakness
and saying the more bad stuff
that happens to me, the better.
We can even glorify our weaknesses
where we try to compare
with other people.
They're not suffering as much as I am.
How dare they say that?
We bend this so much
because of our sin.
But instead,
we must learn to embrace our weakness
to rely on Christ
and the strength that he provides.
So what?
How should this change
the way that we live?
Weakness is not a hindrance
to joy and thriving.
It's a means
by which we can have joy
and thrive.
Weakness does not get
in the way of experiencing
what God has for you.
A thorn is not a sign
that God doesn't care.
Weakness is a tool
to help us experience
God's amazing grace.
So when God lets us
experience weakness,
he's graciously reminding us
of who we are
and who he is
and where we can find
real strength.
God is protecting us
from ourselves.
I love Tripp's words there
of delusion of strength.
Weaknesses help us
wake up from that delusion.
And we've got to learn
to draw on the power of Christ,
learning to embrace that weakness
so that God's perfect grace
can work in us.
Now when hardship and suffering
comes that make us weak,
I think one of the things
that we should say is,
okay, Jesus must be up to something.
When the phone rings
and that's that person
that you would least
like to hear from
or to think about,
we should think,
I wonder what God
is up to right now.
When we face that situation
at work that makes us
wake up with dread,
not even want to get out
of bed tomorrow,
we should think,
what is God wanting
to do for me?
When we're overwhelmed
by the problems
that seem to just pile up
on top of each other,
the problems that we're facing
just multiplies
and we feel weighed down by that.
Anything that disrupts
the way we think
the world should be going,
we should be thinking,
what is God wanting
to do through this?
What is he up to today?
So as I was working
on this passage this week,
recently the acres
are kind of up for visa renewal.
That can be a real stressful time.
And we were getting some word
from the office
that there's some timing issues
and we're a little stressed about it.
And we're praying
and we're praying
and the Lord provided.
This is great.
This is wonderful.
Okay.
The Lord has answered our prayer.
Well, on Friday,
after I've been working
through this passage for a week,
I have sent some messages
to our person in the office
and haven't heard anything.
And she finally responds and says,
hey, I've got an update for you.
I will send to you soon.
Now, previously in the past six months,
that's been code for,
uh-oh, things haven't been going
as they should,
but it's okay.
We're working on a solution.
And so I sent that message.
Okay, I have to ask,
is everything okay?
And then I see those three dots.
And I wait.
And I said,
all right, Lord.
You've been working in me on this.
I've got to ask the question,
what are you up to right now?
I don't know if I can handle this.
What are you up to right now?
And I heard that my grace is sufficient.
So I was resting.
Come to find out there's nothing wrong.
It was a total just like God
just teaching me something in that moment.
Am I willing to apply this to my life
and the things that I dread
and the things that I don't want to be true
in the most inconvenient, stressful times?
Am I willing to say,
all right, God, what are you up to?
I'm here for it.
Your grace is sufficient for me.
Are we willing to embrace weakness
in that way?
Are we going to try to cling to our own strength,
which is what we try to do oftentimes?
But when we do that,
when we try to hold that control,
we are avoiding the power of Christ
working in our lives.
When God doesn't seem to be answering prayer,
when it seems he's abandoned us,
because we can't fathom anything good
coming from this situation.
When those times happen,
we just have to realize
we haven't reached the end of the story yet.
God is working.
He is working powerfully
and he is giving me his riches
to make it through,
to thrive,
to have joy.
He has my good and his glory in mind
and he just says,
trust me.
And we have to understand,
God's not necessarily trying to solve
all of our problems that we're facing.
God is trying to use your problems
to draw you to himself
so that you can know him deeper,
increase the intimacy that you have with him,
be a comfort to others.
And so weakness is like an invitation
to a deeper relationship with Jesus
because we're learning to depend on him
in ways that are new.
Every morning it seems like.
Because Jesus embraced weakness for us,
all the promises of God
find their yes and amen.
Jesus embraced weakness
on our behalf perfectly
so that we could have
his perfect strength.
And one day God's going to take care
of all those secondary problems.
Jesus says,
I'm making all things new.
And until then,
until then,
let him draw you into that deep,
soul-satisfying relationship
that he desires for us to have,
even though it requires us
to embrace weakness.
Let's pray.
God, we do thank you
that not only you are our strength
when we're weak,
you meet us in weakness
filling us with your strength,
making your strength perfect
in our weakness.
Let us learn to cling to that, Lord.
Lord, we are so tempted
to believe the message of Satan.
We're so tempted to say,
if he loved me,
he would answer me right away.
He would say,
yes,
help us, Lord,
to trust you.
You've proven it over and over
and over and over.
Day by day,
your mercies are new every morning.
Your grace has been lavished on us,
and yet we daily,
moment by moment,
forget.
Please help us
to latch on to your grace,
to embrace weakness,
knowing that when we are emptied
of our self-sufficiency.
Your sufficient grace
fills us with the strength of Christ.
Let us embrace that, Lord.
Let us live in the way
that you desire for us to live
so that we can have intimacy with you
and fellowship with one another,
building up each other in Christ,
because we're all weak,
needing strength,
and we need each other
as you've created us
to be interdependent.
Help us to rely on you
and to embrace weakness
in order to find strength of Christ.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.