God's Capacity Through Our Weakness

Well, it's a new year. I don't know if you are one of two types of people that exist, whether you are a happy go lucky person that just stumbles into the new year or whether you are the person that sort of sets plans and goals and starts setting up new year's resolutions and making plans and getting on to that diet and all that sort of stuff. I don't know where I fit into that. I'm maybe in the middle if that's possible. But this new dawn sort of does get us, I think, a little bit reflective and if you're not a reflective type, strap yourself in because we will be reflecting.

But as this new year lies ahead and as you see this blank canvas of what is potential for you, I'm sure that you must be weighing up all sorts of pros and cons of last year and what happened and the good stuff that happened and you tick some of those boxes and the bad stuff that happened and you're hoping that stays behind. You may be evaluating your own personality and the things that you've wrestled with, and you know, and thinking, oh man, I gotta drop that. I gotta quit the smokes. I gotta get healthier again or whatever. We think of all the possibilities and we weigh up our capacity and our capability to follow through on these things in the new year.

We know our strengths and our weaknesses. But do you know that our greatest weakness may be our greatest strength as well? It is something that we find in scripture talked about and I'd like to get you to turn with me to 2 Corinthians 11. And we're gonna read from verse 16 to chapter 12, verse 10. So it's a fair chunk of passage but let's read it through.

It's a fascinating insight into the ministry of Paul and just him being reflective as well about his past and what's happened in a sense. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 16. Paul writes, "I repeat, let no one take me for a fool but if you do, then receive me just as you would a fool so that I may do a little boasting. In this self confident boasting, I'm not talking as the Lord would but as a fool. So I'm being sarcastic.

Since many are boasting in the way that the world does, I too will boast. You gladly put up with the fools since you are so wise. In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or pushes himself forward or slaps you in the face. To my shame, I admit that we were too weak for that. Can you sense the sarcasm here?

What anyone else dares to boast about, I am speaking as a fool, I also dare to boast about. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants?

So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I'm out of my mind to talk like this. I am more. I've worked much harder, been imprisoned more frequently, been flogged more severely, been exposed to death again and again.

Five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea.

I've been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea and in danger from false brothers. I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep. I have known hunger and thirst and have gone without food. I have been cold and naked.

Besides everything else, I face daily the pressures of my concern for all the churches. To who is weak and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin and I do not inwardly burn? 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'm not lying.

In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded 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 fourteen 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 apart from the body, I do not know, but God knows, was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not 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 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.

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me 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.

So far our reading. The meaning of virtue was one of the most prominent ethical discussions of the Greco-Roman world in which Paul was writing in. So-called virtuolists, and you'll find that in all the ancient writers, so many of those philosophers created lists of great things to aspire to, great things as human beings to strive for. It's sort of like our self help books these days. These philosophers write. They abounded in classical literature and they commended things, very noble things even by today's standards such as piety, religiosity.

They commended reverence and excellence. They commended practical knowledge and patience. But one of the characteristics, one of the virtues that was never mentioned in the Greco-Roman world is the virtue of weakness, the trait of weakness. Now you've probably seen how many times in our passage Paul talks about this weakness. Talks about this word, this idea of weakness.

Verse 21 in chapter 11, "we are weak". Verse 29, "who is weak and I do not feel weak?" Verse 30, "if I boast, I will boast about the things that show my weakness". Then sort of towards the end of our passage, verse nine, "therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses". Not only does Paul champion weakness in himself, He goes on and He celebrates the weakness of His Saviour, of His Lord, Jesus.

For to be sure, Paul says He was crucified in weakness. And therefore he says, like all of us, we are weak in Him. We are weak in Christ. And the point of this whole passage is to make this case. That true ability, that true capability is not a matter of personal power.

It is a matter of God's power at work in the Christian even in the midst of severe weakness. Three things I'd like to reflect on today. The first thing is the upside down nature, the counter cultural nature that we have to keep reminding ourselves of, of Christianity. It will keep pushing back against us. It will keep pushing back against the world around us.

The upside down nature of Christianity. The city of Corinth to which Paul was writing, his church in the city, like many ancient cities, was inundated with images of power. They existed in the shadow of the impressive Temple of Apollo who greeted all the visitors of the city once you got in Corinth. The city itself often held contests and competitions of people of athletic prowess, strong warriors and great athletes. Corinth, was called the master of two harbours, was so proud of its economic strength.

They were a trading capital. They were the New York of the time. And so it's not surprising that people in Corinth literally worshipped power. But tied in with this idea of power and influence and security was a fascination with the supernatural, with spirituality. They were a very spiritual people.

This fascination with elite power and supernaturalism led to a big problem in the Corinthian church and that is what Paul had to write to often. He wrote in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 about the spiritual gifts and how they were being misused and people were abusing them in order to puff themselves up. Or they would puff themselves up, he said, in knowledge and secret mysterious understandings, revelations that they felt they had that separated them from the commoners. They, the rich ate with the rich at the Lord's table and the poor ate with the poor. And so you can see this power thing was a big deal.

It was a big stumbling block for the Corinthian church. And it's almost certain that the leaders of this church or certain leaders of this church opposed Paul in Corinth and they boasted that the reason they can oppose him and the reason that the Corinthian church should listen to them rather than Paul is that they had more power than Paul. They had greater spiritual connection with God. They had greater insight and revelation into God's word than Paul did. How can I say this?

Well, because Paul chooses to defend his ministry over and over and over again by blowing them out of the water, as we read, by all the insights on how, humanly speaking, he had the qualifications of being the apostle. If there was anyone who suffered more for the church, Paul said put up your hand. Paul blows them out of the water. In chapter 12, verses 1 to 5, Paul talks about a certain man who had incredible visions and dreams, who was caught up to the third heaven. He said, this man heard and saw things in verse 4 that he's not permitted to tell.

Insights that it's too big, too much for anyone to understand except for this man. I wanna be elite. Say something like that. It becomes clear that this person that Paul is talking about, however, is himself. He shifts from the man to verse 7, "to keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassing great revelations".

Revelations. This is not an actual different person. This is Paul and he's speaking self effacingly but he's talking about himself. Paul is saying, you want to discount me based on some supernatural so called experiences that you've had, fine. But I think that's a very weak argument.

That's a bad place to start fellas. I've experienced it all. We just also, just on reflection, we get a glimpse of Paul's humility that he didn't build his ministry on that. He didn't build his leadership credentials on that at all. No one knew about it and therefore people say, well, he's not as spiritual as the rest of us.

But Paul, you see, doesn't end there and say, well, here's my authority now, here's my credentials, my CV is in place. He goes on to express the cost of what this power meant for him. Paul goes on to testify to the thorn in the flesh that was given to him. In words very similar to the story of Job actually, if you were to go and look it up again, Paul sees his afflictions as having been dealt by a messenger of Satan Himself. Affliction, however, that is permitted by God. Because verse 7 again says, "to keep me from becoming conceited", in order to protect me, in order to guard me from falling into pride, Satan sent a messenger.

God allowed this in order to protect Paul. He does have Paul understands it. And so Paul understands his own afflictions to be a blow from the arch enemy yet at the same time allowed by God in order to prevent a pride that would have undermined his whole ministry, perhaps his life. If ecstatic experiences might tend toward arrogance, the direct refusal of God to heal Paul drove him to humility. Do you understand that?

These amazing things could have made a separation between him and the people and yet God sends this and it drives him towards humility. Three times, Paul says he prayed for deliverance but God declined. God declined, only letting Paul know this, "My grace is sufficient for you, Paul." In this divine note, Paul understood more clearly the nature of God's power. If his opponents boasted of spectacular things, Paul was obliged to boast of his weaknesses.

Not because weakness in itself was glorious, but because in the weakness, God's power and His glory is more displayed fully. God's power and His glory is more clearly displayed in that weakness. So friends, what is our hope? What is our goal for this year? That you are weak and that God is powerful.

To remember that you are weak, that your God is powerful. What is this weakness? Is it a bad knee or is it a messy hard marriage? What is this weakness? It is humility.

It is recognising and understanding just how incapable you are without the grace of God. When you are in that spot, when you operate out of that mindset, that spot of recognising your total helplessness, then you are far more secure, then you are far more secure than you could hope for. You're far more secure than what you could imagine trying to achieve in your own capability, in your own capacity, in your own security because they are so fleeting, they are so vain. They're here and they're gone. This is what Paul can say in verse 10, "I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties."

And he sums it up, "for when I am weak, then I am strong." As the Greeks, the Corinthians would have taken a lot of pride in intellectual and economic power just like today, fallen human nature seeks control through this power. It seeks to gain control through power. But Christianity, the upside down nature of it holds that the message of the cross casts all virtues in a different light. The cross confounds.

The cross confuses. That rugged and that shameful cross, the Jews saw as a curse of God on a man. To the Greek, it was the epitome of public disgrace. To the Roman, it was the death of a traitor and a rebel. Nothing in the whole structure of the ancient culture, either Jewish or Greek or Roman could account for what was happening there.

They could not be prepared for anyone preaching of salvation in a cross. It was a stumbling block for the Jews and an absurdity to the Greeks. But to those whom God called, Paul says, to those who understood the gospel, Paul would write, it is the wisdom of God. It is the quintessential wonder and majesty of God. It is the power of God through Jesus Christ, that cross.

So the first point is remember the upside down nature of Christianity. In our weakness, we are strong. The second thing is this. Rest in understanding this. After having prayed three times about this thorn in the flesh, God said to Paul in verse 8, "My grace is sufficient for you, Paul for My power is made perfect in weakness." What an amazing statement.

What a paradox. The creator God who spoke and an entire universe came into existence shows His perfect power in weakness. And for this reason, Paul can confidently say, "Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me." So that Christ's power may rest on me. Now, the word that Paul uses here for that word rest, interestingly enough, is the word tabernacle.

Immediately when we read this word, we're reminded of the Old Testament stories where God's spirit rested on the prophets and the kings, similarly. We are reminded of God's presence resting, tabernacling in the temple of David, of the temple or the tent of meeting, the tabernacle. But we're also reminded of John 1:14, that the word of God became flesh and He made His dwelling among us. He literally tabernacled with us. We've just celebrated Christmas which is that incredible thing of God's power coming in such a humble weak body.

God's greatest, humanity's greatest event summed up in that little baby. Just like God met with His people in the wilderness, in the tabernacle, now the eternal word of God comes to earth to rest on His people, to meet with His people, pours out His spirit to dwell within us. Now for Paul, the same eternal word promises to make His dwelling with him. Paul knowing that the promise of grace could not fail because of the divine truth and word of God says, "More gladly therefore, I will glory in my afflictions." The old translation says, "I will glory in my afflictions so that such a power of Christ may overshadow and defend me."

In this coming year, remember that it's not your ability or your calling. It is not your relative health or how well put together you are emotionally, but your hope is in the enabling word and power of God that you are His child, that you are capable, that He will call you, that He will use you and that He will equip you. That is not related to you. That is not contingent upon whether you accept that or understand all of that or even believe that fully. God's word is God's word.

It is His word to give and His promise is that He will empower you. That because of Christ, because of the Spirit, His power will rest in you and almost and because of your weakness. And then the third thing is to rest in this weakness. The third thing is realising that your weakness will be your strength this year. The apostle Paul had gained a lot of honour, a lot of glory for God, but it was not because of his ability but because of his weakness he says.

In his humanity, Paul could have been considered great. We read that Philippians passage earlier this morning. It talks about all these things. He was a rabbi of the rabbis. He was from the tribe of Benjamin.

All the right capabilities. In our passage he says, "Are these guys, these opposition, these leaders against me, are they Hebrews? Well, I am as well. Are they Israelites? So am I.

Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I am even more. I have worked harder," he says.

"I've been in harder situations. I've been in prison more frequently. I've been flogged more severely. I've been exposed to death again and again and again." But in light of all of these achievements for Christ, you could be mistaken, you could be forgiven for thinking Paul probably is entitled to a bit of a pat on the shoulder here.

But Paul, despite his intelligence, despite his learning, despite the fact that we probably suspect that he was from a wealthy family if he was a rabbi, if he could have studied under Gamaliel, one of the greatest teachers of the time, a wealthy family. He was ambitious and hardworking. He was a cream of the crop by Jewish standards. But it was not any of these things, it was his weakness that God delighted in. It was his weakness that God called forth.

It was for this weakness that God allowed Satan to have his way with him. Whatever that thorn of the flesh was, we're not sure. All of his natural abilities and his strengths became vehicles for the service of God. The Lord would use his knowledge of scriptures to preach the gospel to the Jews. The Lord used his speaking ability to persuade the very wise Greeks in their marketplaces.

The Lord would use his zeal and his ambition, his very personality to drive him to far off places that other people wouldn't go to. But his ability was not the same as his calling. His ability was not the same as his calling. God's calling is far more important than your ability. His abilities only supported that calling.

Paul said he delights in hardships. He delights in insults and difficulties because it keeps him, what? Reliant. It keeps him humble. It drives him back to God.

And in that moment, he realises again and again that God's power is made complete in him through his weakness. In wrapping up, I am reminded of an event early on in my ministry when I was still at the previous church in Mansfield. And on an occasion, I was at the point of praying a lot, "Lord, why me? I'm not worthy. I'm not wise enough.

What makes me the right person to go to a person twenty, thirty years older than me having walked the journey with You far longer than I have and to go and support them or encourage them or even rebuke them, correct them. Why? How?" And God sent me a very special encouragement in the form of a very old beautiful lady, a wonderful saint in our church and she approached me one morning and she pressed a little booklet into my hand and it was just a bunch of sort of devotions. And I said thank you very much and sort of went on my way.

It was either before or after a sermon and I got home and I opened it and on the inside cover, she had printed a little passage, scripture passage and it was Jeremiah 1, verses 6 to 7. And it's about the calling of the prophet Jeremiah who after being called by God complains and says, "Oh sovereign Lord, I do not know how to speak. I'm only a child." But God's response in return is full of gentleness and affirmation. God says in verse 7, "Don't say I'm only a child.

You must go everywhere I send you and say whatever I command you to say. That's all. I'll tell you where to go. I'll tell you what to say, just go. Don't worry Jeremiah, about where you're going to go.

Friend, don't worry about the future. Don't worry about this year. God says to Jeremiah in that same verse, "Don't be afraid for I am with you and I will rescue you." Now as a young man starting in ministry, this was huge. This was nectar from heaven.

This was what I needed to hear at that moment. Time and time again, we find this pattern, friends. God chooses the young to teach the old. God uses the sick to teach the healthy. God uses the unstable to teach the stable.

God uses the poor to teach the rich. It happens over and over again in scripture. Why? Because in weakness, God's power is more clearly seen. When I have no strength, God is strong.

When I am unable, God is able. When I pull out the hair out of my head, God says I have a plan. And so as we enter this New Year, let's be aware of the amazing Christian paradox that weakness and humility and meekness is in fact powerful realms where the Spirit of Christ tabernacles. He exists in weakness, where He rests on His children, where He provides shelter and protection for him. And so as we go on to an unknown year, and this year has got lots of unknowns, lots of question marks, this world is very, very scary.

There may be more close to home struggles for you physically or emotionally as you face hardships, as you face broken relationships, as you deal with unforgiveness, as you experience insults for your faith, remember the words of 1 Corinthians 12, verse 9. "I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me." May that be true for us. May God's power be magnified in our lives. Let's pray.

Father, we thank You for Your word to us this morning. Lord, when we receive it and we appropriate it and we digest it and make it a part of us, Oh Holy Spirit, how quickly we can forget, please, by Your grace, us that in weak situations, in brokenness, in difficulty and doubt, Lord You so often use that to reveal Yourself in wonderful ways. You so often lead us through those valleys of the shadow of death in order to bring us to the green pastures. Lord, lead us along these paths of righteousness. Guide us by Your rod and Your staff.

Help us to entrust our lives and every facet of it more and more to Your will, to Your direction, to Your calling over our lives. Help us to be good husbands. Help us to be good dads.

Help us to be good influences and participants and members of our church. Help us not to give up on meeting with one another. Help us to be good wives, good mothers, good employees. But help us to see, Lord, that where we fail and where we stumble and where we fall, God, so often You produce something wonderful. Help us to hold on to that hope.

Help us to stay very far away from sin. And Father, help us to magnify and glorify You in our lives. In Jesus name. Amen.