Strength in Weakness: Embracing God's Grace

But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through our spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him, for we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death to the other the fragrance of life. [00:01:17]

Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God, not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as Ministers of a new covenant not of the letter but of the spirit for the letter kills but the spirit gives life. [00:02:20]

And he makes it perfectly clear that the secret to his usefulness in Ministry cannot be traced to any natural competence, so in verse 5 again not that we are competent or sufficient or adequate in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves but our competence comes from God. [00:04:17]

And so he says if there's any boasting to be done it mustn't be about personal achievements but rather it must be about the Lord, and it is the Lord who has been underpinning all that Paul has done all the way through so that when for example in his first letter he writes concerning success and encouragement in evangelism. [00:06:37]

If there is to be any boasting he says let it then be boasting in the Lord and perhaps to illustrate the very point at the end of chapter 11 he says if I'm going to boast I'll boast of the things that show my weakness, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus who is to be praised forever knows that I'm not telling lies. [00:09:05]

And then he explains his Thorn In the Flesh in terms of God's purposeful intervention in his life, there was given me verse 7 a thorn in my flesh this is his theologizing of his experience it's not our our jurisdiction here to go into this just now, but the way in which he expresses this this striking Peterson paraphrases it helpfully. [00:12:29]

Because of the extravagance of these Revelations and to keep me from getting a big head I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in touch with my limitations I find that very helpful says Bengal how dangerous must self-exultation be when the Apostle required so much restraint that God intervened in his life. [00:12:56]

At the deepest level of his physicality in order to ensure that he would understand that actually it was in the experience of weakness and inadequacy that his greatest usefulness was to be found. Now let's finish this first point with just a couple of comments, it is in the confrontation with inadequacy that he discovers that God's grace is sufficient. [00:13:22]

You will notice that his weakness is not removed, he asked for this Thorn In the Flesh to be removed that is not removed but the weakness becomes the conduit of God's power, and I think verse 10 gives it to us perfectly in that sentence doesn't it the Paradox of Grace when I am weak then I am strong. [00:13:48]

The glory does not lie in our inadequacy, this is not a plea for going around like Uriah Heep trying to tell everybody I'm a very humble man Mr Copperfield I am your Ambush servant Master Copperfield if you know David Copperfield, the glory does not lie in our inadequacy but lies in the adequacy of Christ which is discovered in our weakness. [00:14:40]

And in our insufficiency so again Peterson's paraphrase at the end he says now I take limitations in my stride and with good cheer these limitations that cut me down to size and so the weaker I get the stronger I become, well there we have it that's enough on on the first point I think instead of my insufficiency proving to be a barrier to usefulness. [00:15:20]

That reverse is the case since dependence is the objective weakness is the advantage secondly let's look at it in terms of the cultural setting in which we read our Bibles and in which we respond to these truths, a culture that to borrow a phrase from David Wells has quotes a bloated sense of human capacity a bloated sense of human capacity. [00:15:50]