2 Corinthians 12:1-10

This boasting will do no good, but I must go on. I will reluctantly tell about visions and revelations from the Lord. 2 I was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only God knows. 3 Yes, only God knows whether I was in my body or outside my body. But I do know 4 that I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell. 5 That experience is worth boasting about, but I’m not going to do it. I will boast only about my weaknesses. 6 If I wanted to boast, I would be no fool in doing so, because I would be telling the truth. But I won’t do it, because I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message, 7 even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.8 Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

We all want to get into shape the problem is we don’t want to do the workout. Part of the problem is that we miss the main goal of working out, we make it looking good instead of living good. It’s not so much about how you look but how you live. We want to get stronger which requires some strength training. But in order for us to be successful in strength training, we need a good trainer. When it comes to our spiritual strength training many people fail because they try to train by themselves. Instead of getting stronger they strain and hurt themselves or get less strength than they would have, had someone been there to guide them. In Psalm 29:11 David declares “The Lord gives his people strength,     The Lord blesses them with peace.” This is a promise directly from God, He is offering to be your strength trainer. But too often we don’t want His strength because we think we’re strong enough on our own. Pastor Kyle Idelman tells a story about the time his 4-year-old daughter came into his office as he was rearranging the furniture. He had this large heavy desk and was pushing it from one side of the office to the other. His daughter wanted to help so she got between his arms and just started pushing with all her might. She huffed and puffed, stained and struggled with her dad behind her. At one point she stopped, looked at her dad and said, “Daddy, you are in my way, just stand over there.” Kyle hid his smile and did as she said. Again, she huffed and puffed, struggled and strained but this time the desk didn’t budge an inch because her Daddy wasn’t behind her pushing any longer. This is the sad story for many Christians today, instead of coming alongside and working with God we end up consigning Him to the corner while we struggle in our own strength. This points to another reason why we need to understand the truth that we are weak and He is strong. You see until we realize God is strong and we are weak we’ll tend to live our Christianity backward. Where we live life as if God needs us, instead of the other way around. We will buy into the belief that God needs OUR time, talent, treasures. We’ll believe God depends on us far more than we depend on Him because He just couldn’t live without us. But here is the truth if God is not impressed by the biggest, baddest, bad guys on earth, He’s certainly not going to be all that impressed with my puny efforts. It’s here in 2 Corinthians 12 that we see Paul being tempted by that feeling, as he says in 2 Corinthians 12:7 “So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.” It’s not hard to picture Paul being tempted to pick up pride and becoming conceited. I mean the man’s a legend. When he spoke large crowds of people gathered and were convinced of the truth of Jesus Christ. He was instrumental in starting many new churches throughout Greece and Rome. He not only knew the Bible backward and forward but He wrote half of the New Testament. To top it off according to 2 Corinthians 12 God had given him a vision where he experienced the glory of paradise and saw and heard things he wasn’t permitted to tell us about. How easy would it have been for him to fall victim to the poison of pride? The problem with pride is it would have poisoned Paul’s ministry and made it about self instead of the Savior. It would have gotten in the way of what God wanted to do thru him. But as Bill Cosby once said: “People say: ‘God will find a way.’ God can’t find a way if you’re in the way.” And Paul’s pride would have gotten in the way of God’s will, so God sent a “thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment” him. Now while on the outside this may appear to be mean on the inside it helped Paul’s heart not to become puffed up with pride. While this thorn hurts his flesh and didn’t feel good it actually served to strengthen his faith. God allowed Paul to suffer because if he hadn’t Paul’s pride would have made him think God was weak and he was strong. It would have made him believe that God needed to do things Paul’s way rather than the other way around. Paul’s suffering served to strengthen him by stripping him of selfish pride. As the old Gospel hymn proclaims: “I am weak but thou are strong… Jesus keep me from all wrong”. It’s a good thing to remember,  you and I are weak, but God is strong. For if we don’t remember that, then we will end up doing wrong because we’ll get in God’s way and not give Him the room He needs to work in our lives. Where do you need to admit your weaknesses today? Until we face the fact that we are weak and He is strong we will keep relying on self-strength instead of the Saviors.

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

This boasting will do no good, but I must go on. I will reluctantly tell about visions and revelations from the Lord. 2 I was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only God knows. 3 Yes, only God knows whether I was in my body or outside my body. But I do know 4 that I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell. 5 That experience is worth boasting about, but I’m not going to do it. I will boast only about my weaknesses. 6 If I wanted to boast, I would be no fool in doing so, because I would be telling the truth. But I won’t do it, because I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message, 7 even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.8 Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

A work crew had been working at a construction site for about a week when the head of the company hired a new man. He was a broad-shouldered, strong and powerful young man who while a good worker also had an annoying problem. He was prideful was often engaged in bragging about how he was stronger than everyone else. One day one of the older workers called him out saying “Sonny, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is. I will bet a week’s wages that I can haul something in a wheelbarrow over to that out building that you won’t be able to wheel back.” This prideful punk smiled and said, “I’ll take that bet you’re on old man, let’s see what you got.” The old man reached out and grabbed the wheelbarrow by the handles, then, nodding to the young man, he said, “All right, get in.” That young man typifies much of how the world thinks about life. The world believes that power, wealth, and position are all you need to get ahead in this life. This world lives by the code of the survival of the fittest, that the man with the most might and the most money will always win. It has been said, “The battle isn’t always to the strong, nor the race to the swift, but that’s the way to bet.” That is until you get to the Bible. Because when you open up the pages of God’s Word everything changes. Scripture redefines our definition of strength. Because time after time what you find in the Bible is the little guy beating the big guy. The weak not just showing up but cleaning up. There is the story of Moses walking into the court of the most powerful ruler of the day and his only weapon is a walking stick. Then there is that inexperienced leader named Gideon facing off against 1000s upon 1000s of ruthless warriors with an army of only 300 men. An army that God had reduced from over 30,000 to only 300. What about the story of the young shepherd boy named David who slew the Giant Goliath with nothing more than a sling and a stone. Again, and again Scripture redefines strength and we see the little guy beating the big guy. When it comes to God, man’s might, his money, power, and position mean nothing. We all love that moment in movies when the good guy is faced with a gang of evildoers who ask him, “So what are you going to do now, smart guy?” And the hero smiles and calmly replies: “You better go get a couple more guys to make this fight even.” That’s the story line of scripture. While the bad guys swagger out against God’s people and brag that they’re going to destroy them God simply smiles and says: “You better go get yourself a couple more armies and make this a fair fight.” The perfect picture of this is found in 2 Chronicles 32 where we are told about Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, who comes sweeping down out of the north with his powerful army. Here is a king who has defeated nation after nation and now comes knocking on the door of Jerusalem, surrounding the city, intending to bring them to their knees. In 2 Chronicles 32:14-15 he sends this taunting message through his officers: “Do not let Hezekiah deceive you and mislead you like this. Do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or the hand of my fathers. How much less will your god deliver you from my hand! Who of all the gods of these nations that my fathers destroyed has been able to save his people from me? How then can your god deliver you from my hand?” God’s response is simple, He just smiles and sends a single angel to do battle. Before the night is over 185,000 of Sennacherib’s best soldiers lay dead on the ground.  Sennacherib was forced to return home in disgrace and his own sons assassinated him when he went into his temple to worship. What appeared to be power turned out to be puny. No matter how weak things are we need to remember that our strength does not lay in self it lays in the Savior the one who can make a way where there is no way. As Romans 8:31 reminds us, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” It’s here in 2 Corinthians 12:9 that Paul reminds us that because of God there is power in the puny things, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”… and then Paul concludes “when I am weak, then I am strong” We sing about this strength in the great old gospel song, “Just a closer walk with Thee” which says, “I am weak but thou art strong, keep me Jesus from all wrong I’ll be satisfied as long, as I walk, let me walk close to thee.” Paul reminds us that the power comes from being close to Jesus. Weakness causes us to walk with and become dependent on God’s power. There is power to be found in living close to God. The truth that I am weak forces me not only to face the facts but to do something I wouldn’t do if I were strong. It forces me to not just walk close to Jesus but to cling to Christ. My strength in life comes from walking close to Jesus. Just as Philippians 4:13 promises us: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” When we are walking with Him we are granted access to God’s strength, His power and His ability to deal with the difficulties of this life. Are you walking in your strength or are you plugging into God’s power? Why are we weak today, because we are walking alone instead of walking with the Almighty. Strength comes not from striving but from resting and rely on God. So who is the source of your strength self or the Savior?