Strength in Weakness
Sermon Recording
Sermon Outline
Speaker: Rev. Charles Drew
Sermon Series: Suffering
2 Corinthians 11:30 – 12:10 (ESV)
11:30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. 32 At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, 33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.
12:1 I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. 3 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— 4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. 5 On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses— 6 though if I should wish to boast, I would not be 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. 7 So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 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. 10 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.
Sermon Outline
I) God wants us to boast about the things that show our weakness
• 11:30-- If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
• 12:5b-- On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.
• 12:9b-10-- Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 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.
Meaning of “boast”
Often a negative word
• Proverbs 25:14-- Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of a gift he does not give.
• Psalm 52.1-2: Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day. 2 Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit.
• Psalm 94.4: They pour out their arrogant words; all the evildoers boast.
• Jeremiah 9.23-24: Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD."
Positive for Paul
• By all means, boast… Just be sure that what you revel in are the things that undermine your self-importance and your independence—
II) Boasting in fish baskets and thorns
A) Fish baskets:
vv.32-33: At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, 33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.
Getting knocked down a peg.
The way “up” was “down”
B) Thorns
So to keep me from being too elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.
Paul’s thorn and ours.
III) Why the boast in baskets and thorns?
A) Baskets: God wants us to face reality.
11:30. …the things “…that show my weakness”
• The truth about natural life.
• The truth about spiritual life.
John 3: …you must be born again
Eph 2: …dead in our trespasses and sins”.
Humiliations that instruct.
B) Thorns: God wants to bring us home to him.
Thorns bring us to God himself like nothing else does.
Made for God and too easily satisfied with less.
“Severe mercies” alone make us able to hear, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Prayer of Confession
Our loving and holy God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you have made us for you and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. We know this to be true and yet we drift from you all the time. Our pride and your gifts tend to diminish our delight in you. We are too easily satisfied in the good things of life, content to marginalize you as long as we are relatively happy. We are often so preoccupied with getting ahead, with making a name for ourselves, that we are unwilling to learn from the experiences that humble us. We are often so set on reducing the pain in our lives that we cannot learn from it. Forgive us for not attending to you enough. Forgive us for living as if life was essentially about us. By your Spirit make us more like Christ, who gladly chose to serve rather than to be served and who willingly endured the cross to bring us to our true rest in your home. We pray in the name of Jesus, who has borne our sins and sorrows. Amen.
Questions for Reflection
Jesus answered Paul’s plea for relief from suffering with these words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). Read the following account of Representative John Lewis and compare Lewis’s experience to Paul’s: how are they alike and how are they different?
Congressman John Lewis, who died about ten days ago, was a leader in the civil rights movement. According to the NY Times, Mr. Lewis “led demonstrations against racially segregated restrooms, hotels, restaurants, public parks, and swimming pools, and he rose up against other indignities of second class citizenship. At nearly every turn, he was beaten, spat upon, or burned with cigarettes. He was tormented by white mobs and absorbed body blows from law enforcement…He spent countless days and nights in county jails and thirty-one days in Mississippi’s notoriously brutal Parchman Penitentiary.” A follower of Jesus, who practiced non-violent protest in Jesus’ name, Lewis wrote, “there is something in the very essence of anguish that is liberating, cleansing, redemptive.” He added that suffering “touches and changes those around us as well. It opens us and those around us to a force beyond ourselves, a force that is right and moral, a force of righteous truth that is at the basis of human conscience.” (Christian News Journal, July 20, 2020).Boasting is not encouraged in the Bible…
Proverbs 25:14-- Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of a gift he does not give.
Psalm 94.4: They pour out their arrogant words; all the evildoers boast.
So why then does Paul repeatedly encourage boasting?
11:30-- If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
12:5b-- On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.
12:9b-10-- Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.Paul describes two very different experiences in his life, both of which he chooses to boast in. One is his escape from Damascus early in his ministry and the other is his “thorn”. They represent very different sorts of hardship. Contrast them.
What happened to Paul in Damascus and why? Why was this the sort of experience that Paul learned to delight in? Think of him laughing over the remembrance of it twenty years later. Why the laughter?
We do not know what the nature of Paul’s thorn was. The term means “stake in the flesh”, a sort of living crucifixion. What we can surmise was that the pain was acute and that it was chronic. List at least three acute and chronic “thorns” that you, or a friend, or someone you have heard about on the news, has had to endure.
Why has Paul learned to “boast” in his thorn? What has he discovered through the experience? Recall a parallel experience in your life or the life of a friend—both the thorn and the spiritual discoveries involved.
Reflect on the following: “Paul heard the voice of Christ: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” He could never have heard that voice, he would never have heard it so clearly, he would never have been consoled by it so profoundly, if he had not pleaded three times to have the thorn removed without remedy. And for this reason (not because the thorn was itself a good thing—which Paul never once suggests) Paul was able to boast in his suffering.