Strong while Weak
- bordenmscott
- Feb 1, 2022
- 6 min read
This was the second week I looked to the book of Acts for examples of faith under pressure, and ended up in Acts 27 where Paul and his companions faced what seemed like certain death on board a hurricane-tossed ship. But despite the seeming powerlessness of a prisoner trapped on a ship in a deadly storm Paul not only retained hope but was able to offer it to others, which saved them. You can watch, read, or listen to my Sunday sermon here.
For the Overflow today I want to dig deeper into something Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians. In this week’s message I cited 1st Corinthians 12:8-10, where Paul reflects on the “thorn in his flesh.” Exactly what kind of ailment it was remains a mystery, but it hindered Paul’s ministry and he asked God to take it away. Keep in mind that Paul had prayed to God for much bigger things and seen them miraculously come to pass. But not this.
Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in
difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
(2nd Corinthians 12:8-10)
This, God’s strength shown in our weakness, deserves more than I had time to give it in preparing the weekly sermon. What does that really mean?
We should start with the specifics of Paul’s case. Paul believed that God allowed his condition to plague him because it kept him from becoming conceited. Paul was seeing great things happen in Jesus’ name on His journeys, witness miracles, and having visions. It would have been easy for anyone in that situation to start think that they were quite impressive while forgetting that it was all God. The “thorn in his flesh” humbled Paul. It reminded him of his human weakness and encouraged him to depend on God’s strength.
God’s message to Paul was “my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” That word “sufficient” means something like “enough for you to be content” here. God’s grace provides what he needs to be content, even in times of weakness, insults, hardships, persecution, and in difficulties. These things drove Paul to rely on Christ’s strength, which led to him becoming more spiritually strong.
This is another truth about the Kingdom of God that is "upside down" to the values of our world. If you have an incredibly effective agent like Paul spreading the gospel, planting churches, and encouraging new believers our logic says not to do anything to slow him down! Help him be as productive as possible. Allowing something to limit him run contrary to our get-it-done way of thinking. But God is more concerned with our character and relationship with Him than in the list of things we can accomplish per day.
Bible commentator Warren Wiersbe reflects on this passage with some helpful thoughts here: "Two messages were involved in this painful experience. The thorn in the flesh was Satan’s message to Paul, but God had another message for him, a message of grace. The tense of the verb in 2 Corinthians 12:9 is important: “And He [God] has once-for-all said to me.” God gave Paul a message that stayed with him. The words Paul heard while in heaven, he was not permitted to share with us; but he did share the words God gave him on earth—and what an encouragement they are.
It was a message of grace. What is grace? It is God’s provision for our every need when we need it. It has well been said that God in His grace gives us what we do not deserve, and in His mercy He does not give us what we do deserve. Someone has made an acrostic of the word grace: God’s Riches Available at Christ’s Expense. “And of His [Christ’s] fullness have all we received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16).
It was a message of sufficient grace. There is never a shortage of grace. God is sufficient for our spiritual ministries (2 Cor. 3:4–6) and our material needs (2 Cor. 9:8) as well as our physical needs (2 Cor. 12:9). If God’s grace is sufficient to save us, surely it is sufficient to keep us and strengthen us in our times of suffering.
It was a message of strengthening grace. God permits us to become weak so that we might receive His strength. This is a continuous process: “My power is [being] made perfect in [your] weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9, niv). Strength that knows itself to be strength is actually weakness, but weakness that knows itself to be weakness is actually strength.
In the Christian life, we get many of our blessings through transformation, not substitution. When Paul prayed three times for the removal of his pain, he was asking God for a substitution: “Give me health instead of sickness, deliverance instead of pain and weakness.” Sometimes God does meet the need by substitution; but other times He meets the need by transformation. He does not remove the affliction, but He gives us His grace so that the affliction works for us and not against us."
P.T. Forsyth wrote “It is a greater thing to pray for pain’s conversion than its removal.” That’s a challenging thought to me, who has grown up in a comfort-obsessed culture. We don’t just want pain removed, we want all inconveniences gone, too! But there is an important purpose served by those things which humble us. The struggles or experiences or hardships that put us under strain, cause us to doubt ourselves, or leave us fearful that we cannot handle what’s ahead of us are part of every person’s life and can offer the helpful reminder that we are not God. And we need God. But not just to survive, to see things transformed by His grace.
The French Mystic, Madame Guyon, once wrote to a suffering friend, “Ah, if you knew what power there is in an accepted sorrow!” There is power in learning to be OK with certain things not being OK, and giving that to God, relying on Him to still give what you need. Trust that His grace is sufficient for you.
What happens when you take an inventory of your struggles, weaknesses, and hardships? How do you handle them? Anger that God allows bad things? The expectation that God should take whatever it is away? It’s totally human and entirely fine, as far as I’m concerned, to do exactly what Paul did in asking for his affliction to be taken away. But, trusting God to work for our good, we also need to be ready to accept the bad that we encounter. God can give it a purpose. We can pray for God to reveal that purpose, and ask that His strength would enter in to our weakness. His grace is sufficient.
Leftovers:
I talked a lot about hope being hopeful people on Sunday, but didn’t have any way to work in this helpful series on Biblical hope that I’ve come across. This video from a practical theologian about the nature of hope is a good. introduction. You can proceed through additional videos if you find this helpful.
Devotional Opportunity
Luke 6:46-49: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say? I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the river crashed against that house and couldn’t shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The river crashed against it, and immediately it collapsed. And the destruction of that house was great.”
Prayer: O Lord, let me not henceforth desire health or life except to spend them for you, with you, and in you. You alone know what is good for me; do therefore what seems best to you. Give to me or take from me; conform my will to yours; and grant that with humble and perfect submission and in holy confidence I may receive the orders of your eternal providence, and may equally adore all that comes to me from you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
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