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Weakness into Strength 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 |
May 7, 2006 Pastor Tom Marcum |
The story is told of the sole survivor of a shipwreck who was marooned on an isolated, uninhabited island. Day after day he cried out to God to save him. Day after day he scanned the horizon for any sign of help. Day after day he was bitterly disappointed.
Finally accepting the reality of his plight, he set about preparing for an extended stay. Days of searching finally provided enough raw materials to construct a crude hut. The hut provided shelter from the elements as well as a place to store the few possessions he had managed to salvage from the shipwreck. It wasn’t much but since it was pretty much all that he now had in the world he valued it greatly.
One afternoon while on his daily forage for food he was startled to see a plume of smoke rising above the tree line. Immediately his heart sank. As fear began to envelop him, he raced back to his hut only to discover that it was completely engulfed in flames. As the weight of this latest tragedy settled on him, he dropped to the ground sobbing and overwhelmed. Finally, exhausted, he fell asleep.
When he woke up the next morning he was momentarily disoriented, but then he saw the charred remains of his hut and his despair returned immediately. Then, in the midst of his despair, he noticed that a large ship was anchored just off the shore of the tiny island. As he continued to watch a small boat was lowered over the side of the ship and within minutes several crewmembers arrived to carry him to safety.
Overcome with joy he cried out, “How did you find me?” “How did you even know I was here?”
One of the crewmembers replied, “We just followed the smoke from your distress signal.”
Hours earlier he had watched his hut go up in flames. At the time, it seemed like the ultimate tragedy of his life. In fact, this apparent tragedy was the key to his rescue. Which leads me to ask this question: “How many times do you suppose that we have made similar miscalculations in assessing the relative value of the circumstances and experiences of our own lives?”
--Here was this circumstance or experience that you just knew was going to bring great joy, satisfaction or reward into your life. Instead, all it brought you were grief, trouble, pain and heartache. Has that ever happened to you?
--How about this? There’s a person in your life that you’d do anything to be rid of; a flaw in yourself that you’d give anything to change; Or an experience from your past that you’d do anything to undo… Something happened in your life that you deemed to be a thoroughly negative experience. Yet now, in retrospect, you’ve come to realize that the very thing you so anguished over has actually become the foundation of some good or some blessing that, at the time, you could not possibly have imagined happening. “Has that ever happened to you?”
There are a number of grand themes woven through the scriptures and one of the grandest of those themes is that God often does His greatest work in and through us, not at the point of our strengths but rather precisely at the points of our greatest weaknesses. Over and over again the scriptures make it clear that what we see as a weakness God may view as an opportunity to show Himself strong.
Once learned, this is a lesson that can absolutely transform our lives. But, folks, it’s a terribly difficult lesson to learn. And not just for some of us, but for all of us. In fact, even the great Apostle Paul struggled to learn this lesson. This morning, we’re going to see what we can learn from his struggles.
Beginning in 2 Corinthians 12:7 we read, “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.”
By any measure the Apostle Paul stands among the giants of our faith. Yet, throughout his ministry this great man of God suffered from what he calls, “a thorn in the flesh.” Paul was afflicted with some sort of physical, emotional or spiritual malady that he endured as an unrelenting burden. A burden so great, that by his own acknowledgement, it “tormented” him.
Continuing now with verses 8-9a we read, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you…’”
It’s a heart-wrenching picture. Here is this great man of God repeatedly pleading with the Lord to free him of this agonizing burden. And to his every request the Lord said, “No.” In fact, the phrase, “But he said to me,” implies that this will be a permanent affliction.
So, here’s the picture. Paul has given his heart and life to the Lord…but he is laboring daily under the staggering weight of some significant burden. And Paul is convinced that his life and ministry would be dramatically improved if this burden were removed. So, he takes his request to the Lord and the Lord said, “No. This burden is yours.”
Have you ever had a well-intentioned Christian friend come to you in a time of distress and say something like, “You know, if you just had enough faith God would answer your prayer?” Has anyone ever said something like that to you? Have you ever said something like that to someone else?
Folks, here’s the problem I have with that advice. I don’t believe Paul lacked faith. I look at the record of his life of sacrificial service to the Lord and I don’t see a lack of faith. All of which tells me that the lesson here is not, “Do you have enough faith?” The lesson is, “There are some burdens in life that are simply ours to bear.” Consequently, the question we need to ask is, “How does a person of faith bear up under life’s burdens?” What is the appropriate response of a Christian in the face of a daunting life struggle?
The answer begins to emerge as we read a bit further in our text. Let’s pick it up again at verse 8. “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.’”
Paul pleads with God, “Lord, I can’t bear this burden anymore. It’s tormenting me. Please, take it away.” And the Lord says, “Paul, this burden is not going away…but neither am I. When you are at your weakest my strength will carry you through. Paul, my grace is sufficient to hold you up under whatever burden you may be facing.”
It’s just one more of the many paradoxes of our relationship with God. If we can endure it in faith this circumstance, this burden, this trial which we judge to be the point of our greatest weakness may very well become the staging ground for the most powerful demonstration of God’s grace that we may ever experience. God may very well be planning to use this point of personal weakness to lead us into a more powerful, more intimate experience of His grace. Consequently, it may be that instead of focusing all of our energy on trying to be rid of this trial we might be wise to spend some time asking God to show us what purpose He might be desiring to accomplish in us through this trial.
In verses 9-10 we see Paul’s response to the Lord’s promise of grace sufficient for every trial. He writes, “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.”
Its comments like this that lead some to dismiss the Christian faith as unrealistic and out of touch with the real world. But, folks, when Paul says, “I delight in weaknesses,” he’s not mouthing platitudes. This is not the voice of a spiritual Pollyanna. What you’re hearing here is the voice of wisdom and spiritual maturity.
Is Paul saying that he’s learned to enjoy the tormenting thorn that God wouldn’t take away? No. He’s not saying that at all. What he’s saying is that while this thorn continues to torment him, he has nonetheless discovered that what Christ told him about the sufficiency of His grace has proven to be true. In the midst of his weakness he has experienced the power of Christ coming to rest upon him.
In fact, a literal translation of that phrase, “may rest on me,” reads like this, in the midst of my weakness the power of Christ “spreads its’ tent” over me. At precisely those moments when I am at my weakest, the power of Christ envelops me like a tent.
Paul didn’t enjoy the trial. But he did enjoy the time of rest in Christ’s tent of grace in the midst of his trial.
A few years ago I had a remarkable conversation with one of our homebound, seasoned citizens who has since gone home to be with the Lord. Mary was a schoolteacher for decades and she absolutely loved her career. She loved the kids. She loved to teach. She loved to read. She loved to learn. She loved to express herself through creative writing. And she loved to engage in stimulating conversation. Mary was always fascinated with a well-turned phrase.
And Mary was also a bundle of energy. She was always on the go. Always exploring new things. She told me that the thought of growing old, and being stuck inside the house when there was a whole fascinating world just outside the door used to make her skin crawl. And then, one day, Mary got old.
The energy that used to propel her into all sorts of adventures was gone. Just getting out of bed and into the kitchen to fix a piece of toast for breakfast was enough to leave her exhausted until noon.
When her energy returned she indulged her passion for creative writing by composing letters to friends and family. But her mind wasn’t as quick as it used to be. And her energy level wasn’t as high as it used to be. Consequently, the challenge of pulling the words out of her mind and then getting them down on paper now meant that a one-page letter could easily take her all afternoon. And, inevitably, the effort left her absolutely drained.
As Mary was telling me her story my heart was breaking for all that she had lost when suddenly she said, “But, Pastor, God is so good to me.”
I said, “Mary, talk to me about that. How is God good to you these days?”
She said, “Pastor, when I used to think about what it would be like to be old and weak and unable to live the kind of life that has always been so important to me, I would get so afraid. I just knew I’d be bored to death. That the walls would close in and slowly drive me crazy. But now that I’m here I’ve found that it’s just not so. I can’t do any of the things that used to be so important to me. But what I’ve discovered is that as my ability to do those things has disappeared God, in His grace, has removed my interest in those things.” She said, “Pastor, if I never leave this apartment again, that’s fine. I’m perfectly content to stay right here as long as He chooses to leave me here and just rest in His grace.”
So let me ask you, folks--Does that sound like a platitude to you? It sounds to me like the voice of wisdom and spiritual maturity. It sounds to me like someone who has experienced the reality of the Lord’s promise—“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
The story is told of a mother who took her young son to see a performance by the great Polish concert pianist, Ignace Paderewski. She hoped the experience would encourage her son to continue with his piano lessons.
As they waited for the concert to begin the young boy managed to slip away while his mother was talking with a friend. Soon the house lights dimmed and the audience quieted and only then did they notice a young boy seated before the majestic Steinway piano innocently playing, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
The boys’ horrified mother gasped and began to leap from her seat but before she could make her way to the stage Paderewski appeared on the stage. Quietly walking up behind the boy he whispered, “Don’t quit—keep playing.”
Then, leaning over the youngster, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in an elegant bass part. Soon his right arm reached around the other side, completely encircling the child, to add a beautiful running obligato. Together the old master and the young novice held the crowd mesmerized.
It’s a great story. It’s also a beautiful picture of the way that God’s grace sustains us when we are at our weakest. We still have to bear the burden. But if we’ll stay attentive to God He will quietly surround us and whisper, Don’t quit—keep playing. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
© Copyright 2006 Pastor Tom Marcum