1. The AA Room: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol & our lives had become unmanageable…” (Step 1); “…made a decision to turn our lives & will over to the care of God…” (Step 3). Alcoholics only become sober when they “hit their rock bottom”…when they finally recognise they are helpless and need help from a source greater than themselves…
We don’t like to admit to weakness: we go to lengths to conceal it from others & from ourselves. On CV’s we don’t list limitations, but flag up strengths. Recently we have seen our politicians under minute scrutiny - because we demand strong (boasting) leaders…any sign of weakness they’re out! They admit to uncertainty/weakness at their peril…
Paul lived in similar times; although he didn’t look the part & his detractors constantly questioned his credentials (as apostle)…he’s asked, what is the secret of your success? Defend yourself!
After speaking of his ecstatic experience of God - Paul refuses to play the game anymore. He had bragging rights but says, “I’ll boast about my weakness”. Here are some steps for worldly failure! (2 Cor. 12:9)
Step1. Like Paul we will confess our weakness: Elsewhere Paul has already said:
1And I, when I came to you, brothers did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of) the Spirit and of power, 5that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Cor 2:3)
1A. If you are a Christian it is not because you are strong…
4Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor 4)…
Grace (God’s unmerited favour); Grace (God’s Riches at Christ’s expense); Grace – however you define it – is God’s free gift of salvation (of life from above) which does not depend on anything we have done but on Christ alone, on his painful death on a cross (which speaks to the ultimate in human weakness) where he took on himself what we deserved… and on his resurrection… through which we are promised eternal life. What had Paul ever done to warrant the favour of God?! Nothing!
Grace insists that we (take the 1st Step) and recognise that we are weak. It’s the right thing to admit that alone you cannot manage.
“For there is no distinction since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3: 23-24) - & when we admit we are powerless:-
Step 2. Like Paul, God will use our weaknesses: Paul had a thorn. We are not told what it was but we know it was more than an inconvenience (stake). Three times the apostle Paul pleaded with the Lord to remove his impediment, but the Lord answered, "My grace is sufficient" (2 Corinthians 12:9). Paul then gloried in his limitations, for he realized that they did not limit him. As he put it, "When I am weak, then I am strong" (v.10)
‘God uses weakness to reveal His great sufficiency; So if we let Him work through us,
His power we will see.’ (Sper)
God's strength is best seen in our weakness. God can do nothing with an iron bar and everything with a broken reed. God will work through broken vessels like us. And I can use your thorn…
Jesus Christ was weak by the standards of the world. God’s power is seen at work in his life of meekness and surrender.
14Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God) let us hold fast our confession. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses - but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (HEB 4)
Jesus surrendered to the world of politics and evil to go to the cross. He lived in apparent weakness died a death as a weak and frail human being – so he understands… He went through the pain – he cried out thrice in the Garden then accepted that it was his Father’s will he should die. Paul’s petitions are the echo of Gethsemane. Jesus knows…
Step 3. Like Paul, our weakness will drive us to God: Weakness often makes us angry & drives us away from God. God’s reply is not, ‘I will give you grace sufficient,’ but ‘My grace’ (which you have now) is ‘All sufficient for you.’ And what you already have in your possession is enough for all that comes raging against you: disease, disappointment, loss, and misery. ‘My strength is made perfect’ — that is, of course, perfect in its manifestation or in operation, for it is perfect in itself already. ‘My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ It works in and through human weakness. The power to prevail is there & is found in God-the-Holy Spirit; He helps us in our weakness; when we can’t string a sentence together in prayer for lack of words, He is interceding for us, comforting and giving strength – in our weakness…
If our weaknesses cause us to seek God and rely on Him, they actually help us instead of hinder us. In fact, they become the best thing that could happen to us, because our growth in courage, power, and happiness depends on our relationship with the Lord and how much we are relying on Him. His strength loves to work in weakness, only the weakness must be conscious, and the conscious weakness must have passed into conscious dependence. ‘Because I am weak, you are my strength.’ The secret of all noble, heroic, useful, successful life lies in this paradox, ‘When I am weak, then am I strong,’ and the secret of all failures, miseries, hopeless losses, lies in its opposite…
Our weakness will drive us to God & then.
Step 4. God (we find) will be sufficient for the day:
Spurgeon said: “When God forgives our sins there’s more forgiveness to follow. He justifies us in the righteousness of Christ, but there’s more to follow. He adopts us into his family but there’s more to follow. He gives us grace, but there’s more to follow. He helps us to old age, but there’s still more to follow. Even when we arrive in the kingdom to come, there’s still more to follow!”
Don’t forget that God’s grace is enough for all our sin: you can’t out-sin God’s grace either!
“Where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more!” (Romans 5: 20)
It is possible (promised) that we can be content because the gift of grace is enough: in suffering: If we believe that Christ has the divine right to reign in our lives, the chances are that life is not going to be a “cake walk”. We will experience difficult times and even hardship. Some of us are having hard times now, but in that weakness his strength shines through. Those who are wounded know best how to heal.
Let us remember that God’s grace is all we need to serve him (and others), because, “God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work.”
Many people tell us that “I just want to be happy”…many say they deserve good things and a life which is pain free. Our society suggests 2 aspirins for every headache, plastic surgery at the first signs of ageing, certain love in a bottle of perfume…an answer to every problem and a quick fix to stop the pain.
We despise the discipline and strengthening that suffering brings in our lives; we forget that the Lord disciplines those he loves; we forget the promises, that, “The God of all grace who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus will personally restore, establish, strengthen and support you after you have suffered a little while” (1 Peter 5: 10).
There will be a time when suffering and sin are no more…
“One day at a time, and the day is His day: He has numbered its hours, though they haste or delay,
His grace is sufficient; we walk not alone; as the day, so the strength that He gives to His own! (Flint)
Paul found grace (help) when he had reached the end of himself, his rock-bottom – when his life had become unmanageable; grace is there when we are broken of self-reliance, when we no longer try to define ourselves by our own wisdom and strength but when we acknowledge “we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us! “ (Phil 4:13)
If you are a Christian…it is not because you are strong…it’s because you are weak…and because you know the God of grace!