July 6, 2025 • 34 mins
In this sermon from NewCity Orlando’s Preach Your Heart Out series, Pastoral Intern Connor Bonello explores the surprising strength found in weakness through the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:1–10. Paul recounts a profound spiritual experience yet shifts focus to his "thorn in the flesh"—a persistent trial that keeps him dependent on God. Rather than removing the affliction, God assures Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
Connor invites listeners to consider how God's grace meets us not in spite of our weakness but because of it. Rather than striving to escape our limitations, we are called to embrace them as opportunities for Christ’s power to rest upon us. In a culture obsessed with strength, competence, and control, this message offers a countercultural hope: that in our frailty, we are not disqualified—but uniquely qualified—to reflect the sufficiency of Christ.
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Rev. Damien Schitter (00:05):
Hello everyone.
This is Pastor Damien.
You're listening to SermonAudio from New City, orlando.
At New City, we believe all ofus need all of Jesus for all of
life.
For more resources, visit ourwebsite at newcityorlandocom.
Thanks for listening.
Raquel West (00:20):
Good morning.
Please pray this corporateprayer of illumination with me.
Heavenly Father, your word istruth.
By your spirit, give us ears tohear and hearts to believe your
word with joy through JesusChrist, our Lord, amen.
(00:40):
Today's scripture reading comesfrom 2 Corinthians 12, 1
through 10.
I must go on boasting, thoughthere is nothing to be gained by
it.
I will go on to visions andrevelations of the Lord.
I know a man in Christ who, 14years ago, was caught up to the
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third heaven, whether in body orout of the body, I don't know,
but God knows.
And I know that this man wascaught up to the third heaven,
whether in body or out of thebody, I don't know, but God
knows.
And I know that this man wascaught up into paradise, whether
in the body or out of the body,I don't know.
God knows.
And he heard things that cannotbe told, which man may not
utter.
On behalf of this I will boast,but on my own behalf I will not
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boast, except of my weaknesses,though if I should wish to boast
, I would not be a fool, for Iwould be speaking the truth.
But I refrain from it so thatno one may think more of me than
he sees in me or hears from me.
So to keep me from becomingconceited because of the
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surpassing greatness of therevelations, a thorn was given
me in the flesh, a messenger ofSatan, to harass me, to keep me
from becoming conceited.
Three times I pleaded with theLord about this, that it should
leave me, but he said to me mygrace is sufficient for you, for
(02:10):
my power is made perfect inweakness.
Therefore, I will boast all themore gladly of my weaknesses,
so that the power of Christ mayrest upon me.
For the sake of Christ, then, Iam content with weaknesses,
insults, hardships, persecutionsand calamities, for when I am
(02:37):
weak, then I am strong.
This is God's word.
Connor Bonello (02:43):
Well, thank you, raquel for the reading and
Jason for the introduction.
Yeah, my name is Connor.
I'm an intern here.
I haven't had a chance to meetyou.
Feel free to come meet me afterthe service.
Well, this morning we're goingto be jumping into a new sermon
series for the month of July.
We're titling it Preach yourHeart Out.
So throughout the month of Julywe're going to go through a
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series of passages that arechosen personally by the
preacher.
So there's not gonna benecessarily a common thread
through them all, but there willbe a common posture.
The posture is gonna be one oftenderness, tenderness, of
things the Lord has laid on ourheart towards who our God is and
what his mission is for us herein Orlando.
(03:28):
So with that, today I decided totalk about weakness, and
weakness is kind of a trickysubject.
We're all really fine and happyto talk about weakness in the
abstract.
We talk about weakness and whatit means.
That's great.
But then, when we start to talkabout weakness in ourselves,
things become a little bit moredifficult.
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We don't necessarily want totalk about weakness, but the
truth is that life is hard andthat we often come across
certain challenges where we comeface-to-face with our
weaknesses.
We come face-to-face with ourinadequacies and we have to ask
ourselves in those moments whatis it that I'm to do?
(04:08):
Perhaps you know, we can allthink of a time where you come
before a challenge and you hearthe voice.
It could be internal orexternal and it'll tell you
you're not good enough, you'renot able.
You may believe it, you may not, but it's a voice that you hear
.
And to some of us in this room,there's gonna be two groups of
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people.
Some of us are gonna respond toweakness and you're gonna kind
of recoil, you're gonna kind ofshut down, you're gonna be all
too familiar when we talk aboutweakness today.
You're well aware of yourinadequacies.
And for you, I want to inviteyou this morning that God has
come and called to invite you tohis strength and he offers you
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hope.
But then there's another groupof people that this message is
for this morning, and it's goingto be some of us in this room,
and that's that we actually arequite confident in our abilities
.
We don't really associateweakness with ourself.
But for you, I want to ask youto go low this morning and to
ask God, where he might show andshare weakness, for you to
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learn to rely on his strength.
And so, with that, wherever youfind yourself on that spectrum
again, we all can relate to whenwe come across this idea of
whether it be yourself orsomeone else saying you're not
good enough.
And what do we do in thatmoment?
Do you decide to defendyourself and puff up yourself in
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pride and explain all thereasons that you are worthy to
do whatever the task is beforeyou, or do you shut down?
Do you kind of spiral into,maybe, self-doubt and inaction?
The world will tell you thatthe response to this, the
healthy response, is to say no,you're wrong, I am good enough.
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But what we'll see today in ourmessage is that Paul kind of
goes a different direction andin fact, the Bible turns the
accusation of you not being goodenough on its head.
It doesn't say, no, I am goodenough.
The Bible actually says you'reright, I'm not good enough.
And in fact I never was goodenough.
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It's not how I was designed.
I wasn't designed to rely on myown strength.
I was designed to rely on themaker of the universe.
I was designed to be a branchthat channels his power and
nothing less.
The question for us thismorning is do we believe it?
The truth is that we have allthe power we may need, and it's
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not our power, it's God's.
And with that we're going to seewhat Paul has to say in 2
Corinthians, where he'saddressing the matter.
You see, throughout the letterof 2 Corinthians we're jumping
into the back end of it, but wesee, in the first beginning of
the opening letter he talksabout this burden that he's
experiencing that's beyond hisstrength, and that it requires
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him to lean on the Lord.
And then, later on in thechapter, chapter four, he'll
talk about how God has thisimmense power and he's decided
to put it in these jars of clay,this foolishness.
That makes no sense.
That you have this immensepower, but it's in this fragile,
weak object.
And then, lastly, hisargument's building to a climax
in our passage today, where hetalks about weakness and
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strength being made perfect inweakness.
So to explore Paul's point,we're gonna have three points to
look at.
The first one's gonna be howthe world sees weakness.
The second's gonna be how theLord sees weakness, and then the
third point will be how we cansee our weakness.
So our first point how theworld sees weakness.
The world sees weakness throughthe lens of comparison to
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others, which is why comparisonis the first thing that we go to
when we notice weakness inourselves.
I mean, for example, we're allokay with weakness if everybody
has that weakness right.
Nobody can dunk a basketballlike LeBron James, so we're not
really embarrassed about thefact that we can't do that.
We all have skin where if youhave a sharp object and it you
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know were to pierce that skin,everybody, that's going to
happen to them, and so we'reokay with the fact that we have
our vulnerabilities.
It's only when we see aweakness in ourself that isn't
in someone else that we start tothink less of ourselves, or the
opposite.
It's only when we see aweakness in others that's not in
ourselves, that we begin tobecome prideful.
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And so Paul, aware of thishuman impulse, begins this part
of the passage by addressingcomparison.
Chapter 12 begins with I will goon boasting, though there is
nothing to be gained by it.
He then goes on to describethis great revelation that he
can boast about for the next sixverses, of where he went to go
see heaven in of itself.
(09:00):
You should know well why isPaul going on about this
boasting?
What's the accusation againsthim?
Well, you see, first centuryCorinth was a lot like 21st
century America.
It's all about people that havecome to make a name for
themselves in a city that's fullof opportunity and development.
And so, with that, thatatmosphere seemed to have
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influenced a group in the churchof these sort of super apostles
.
These people were going aroundand they were essentially
competing with Paul for thetitle of apostleship and they
were telling people all thereasons why Paul wasn't the guy.
They would say things like oh,he's lame, he can't speak well
and you know, paul only alludesto a couple things, but
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basically they're trying todiscredit what Paul can do and
they're trying to demonstratetheir strengths.
And well, what do we see whenthat happens?
Is Paul kind of initially, inchapter 11, talks about how this
is a foolish way to go aboutwho is an apostle?
But then he decides to playalong just for a moment and
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that's what we see in ourchapter today, the beginning.
He starts to talk about avision he had of heaven, where
he went to go see the throneroom of God, and then he kind of
responds have these apostlesseen that?
It's well played, it's a prettygood point by Paul's part, but
he doesn't just do that becausehe's wanting to demonstrate that
he is the guy.
If you notice, he says it in akind of strange term.
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He's talking about it in thethird person.
He's saying I know of a man whohas gone to heaven.
And then he goes on to say youknow, but of him I will boast,
but of myself I will not boast.
And that might sound a littlebit confusing to us today, but
what we genuinely think ishappening here is Paul is
talking about himself, but he'sjust saying it in a way that
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can't be confused with an actualboast.
He's demonstrating that if he'sgoing to boast, he can and he
can beat the super apostles attheir own game, but he doesn't
want to, and that's why he'llagain say this is foolishness
and it's not how I'm going to bedefined as an apostle.
So, after pulling his ace ofspades, what does Paul then do?
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He tells them that this isfoolishness, that this is not
how the kingdom of God is built.
So why did Paul then go to thatlength to describe his
accomplishments?
Because he wants to demonstratethe hypocrisy of these apostles
that were discrediting him.
He was saying we preach Christand I'm not preaching Paul, and
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yet these people are preachingthemselves.
It's the power of Christ alonethat has done anything in any of
our lives, and so it's easythis morning to maybe kind of
look at the super apostles, tolook at these people that want
to rely on their own strengthand point the finger and maybe
talk about how silly or foolishthey are.
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But I think the truth is that wekind of do that ourselves too,
Whether it's coworkers,neighbors, family members, name
it.
You know other parents.
We like to look across thefence and we like to judge, we
like to compare, take your pickof whatever setting you want,
but just think about it for amoment.
At one point, maybe there'ssome responsibility, some task,
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some calling that you foundyourself to and you're
performing at it, you're workingat it and you actually feel
pretty good about yourself.
You feel like you're actuallydoing it pretty well.
And then what maybe happens issomeone comes along new neighbor
, new parent, new coworker,whatever it may be and they
actually end up being prettygood at their job.
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In fact, some may say they're alittle bit better at it than
you.
And so what is your initialresponse?
Maybe Is that you start tobecome consumed with the margin
of difference between you andthat other individual.
You start to think about waysin which you can catch up or
ways that you do other thingsbetter than they do.
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Before you know it, you're moreconcerned about that person and
what they're doing as opposed tothe original responsibility or
task that you had taken onBefore.
You're concerned about, maybe,the parenting of your household.
You're more concerned.
You're totally consumed aboutwhat's going on in their
household.
You're totally consumed aboutwhat's going on in their work
responsibilities.
We become so focused on thecompetition that we're no longer
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reminded of and thinking of theoriginal objective.
Maybe you even once thought that, you know, I would never be
that way.
But then one day, before youknow it, you have.
You see, why is that?
And that's because the worldsees weakness as a reason to be
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lesser.
But Paul again is clear thatweakness is not a lesser thing,
and so that'll transition us nowinto our second point.
If the world sees weakness asan opportunity to be lesser than
those around you, how does theBible see it?
How does the Lord see it?
And it's actually humanity'sdesire to be or, excuse me.
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So I'll start with verse seven.
That's where we'll head to nextin our passage, and after
describing his visions in heaven, he'll go on to say so.
To keep me from becomingconceited because of the
surpassing greatness of therevelations, a thorn was given
me in the flesh, a messenger ofSatan to harass me, to keep me
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from becoming conceited.
You see, the Lord is keepingthese super apostles from
becoming boastful in Paul'srebuke of them, but now we see
something interesting.
Paul himself now has a hardship.
He has a, he has a thorn in hisflesh, and it's a messenger of
Satan.
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What's weirder, though, thanjust being a messenger of Satan
is that that messenger was sentby God.
Now, god doesn't say listen tothat messenger.
That's an important thing tonote, but nonetheless, he does
say that God sent a messenger.
Well, why is that?
Well, paul says that God did itto keep him from becoming
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conceited.
You see, paul just got donerebuking these super apostles
about all the reasons that theywere living in foolishness, and
then he goes and he turns aroundand he just says I'm no better
than them.
I'm just as capable as whatthey're capable of, and God and
his mercy has actually deliveredme from that by giving me this
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hardship.
He sees his hardship, hisweakness, as mercy.
You see, the truth is that weall are vulnerable to becoming
conceited, and our weakness isan opportunity to come in touch
with our reality.
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What we can see from this storyagain, god gives this thorn to
Paul.
What we can see from that isthat the hardest things in our
lives, the things that you aremost upset and frustrated with
about yourself, that very thingGod is sovereign over.
He's in control.
There wasn't an error in thefactory machine when he was
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building you.
He wasn't making cookies and heaccidentally put baking soda
instead of baking powder inthere.
Not a baker, but I think that'show that works.
That would be a mess up.
No, the Bible is clear that Godis sovereign over everything
and he is not too weak to handlewhatever situation you find
yourself in.
He's not looking down fromheaven saying, oh no, what do I
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do now?
I didn't see this coming.
No, he's in control.
But maybe that leads us to asecond question this morning.
Then If God's in control, whywon't he remove this weakness so
that I can better accomplishwhat he has before me?
Right?
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You frustratingly look at Godand you say you know, if I
didn't have this issue, I couldbetter disciple my kids.
If work wasn't so challenging,then I would be able to have
more energy to exemplify Christin the workplace.
You know, I'd be able to lovepeople better, god, if you
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didn't give me such a hardchildhood where I didn't learn
how to manage my emotions better.
There's so many different waysthat life has just kind of
kicked us and brought us downand we just kind of ask God, why
?
Why did this come to me?
If you want me to go and shareyour light with others, it
becomes such a hindrance to whatGod has called us.
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Well, what's interesting isthat we see Paul pleads the same
thing, and I think that's acomfort for us this morning.
He says three times I pleadedwith the Lord about this, that
it should leave me, but God saidto me my grace is sufficient
for you, for my power is madeperfect in weakness.
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Paul pleads and yet God says no.
But what's interesting is thatGod's answer is not you know
I'll remove this from you, justwait a little bit longer.
It's simply, my grace issufficient.
You know I'll remove this fromyou, just wait a little bit
longer.
It's simply, my grace issufficient for you.
God, in our weakness, wants usto learn to rely on him and
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that's because he wants Paul tosee that he was always weak.
You see, being weak is notsomething you can possibly avoid
, it's human.
The thorn wasn't there to makePaul weak.
It was there to show him hisweakness.
That was already there.
The thorn was there to helpPaul see that he needed God and
God's strength and to rely onthe Lord.
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It kind of reminds me of aconversation that I had with a
friend recently.
I was talking with him and Iwas talking about just this
weakness that I felt myself andI was just really frustrated,
just, you know, with you knowhow I felt God was not bringing
deliverance or healing.
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And so I was describing it tohim and he responded you know,
what do you feel when youexperience that weakness?
And I told him that, you know,I can kind of maybe get shut
down.
I can maybe kind of get down onmyself.
I don't like seeing weakness inmyself, and so, you know, I can
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kind of just get my head maybespiral.
I would probably be in thatgroup of people from the intro
this morning.
And my friend responded youknow, I think you see weakness
as shame.
You see it as a shameful thingto be weak.
And of course, my response waswell, of course weakness is
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shame.
Weakness is is is showing thatyou can't be relied upon, it's
not something that you want toshare with people and it's not
something you want to be.
And then he replied to me justsimply weakness is not shameful,
weakness is human, and I don'tknow about you, but that really
struck a chord with me when hetold me that weakness is not
shameful, weakness is human andI don't know about you, but that
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really struck a chord with mewhen he told me that and it got
me thinking.
Weakness, you know, has existedsince the beginning of humanity.
Now, ever since the fall, it isintertwined with our brokenness
, and so we need to be wise inhow we differentiate the two.
We do have a weakness towardssin, and that's something we
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need to actively work against,but weakness itself existed in
the garden.
A biblical view of weakness isdependence.
In fact, it was our desire tonot be weak that actually caused
sin to enter the world.
It was man's desire to bestrong and to rely on themself
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that actually created everysingle wrong that's ever existed
.
Today.
A hatred of weakness hascreated every pain and
brokenness that we see in thisworld when we trust in ourselves
to handle our weakness.
It doesn't remove our weakness,it just blinds us to it.
When we reject how God has madeus, how he's designed us, to
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lean in and rely on him, that'swhen pain and destruction ensue.
And so what the Lord wants usto do in our lives is to look at
our weakness and to run to him.
It's what we were supposed todo in the garden.
We're supposed to rely on him,just walk with him, just eat
what he's provided, to not knoweverything, because we don't
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need to.
Like I mentioned, there might betwo different people in this
room.
Some of you shut down and maybelive in misery when you
experience weakness.
Others will live in denial andmaybe puff up your pride, but
both of these are wrongresponses to when we experience
weakness.
It doesn't matter if you run toyourself or if you run to you
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know quietness and isolation.
The only true response toweakness, which we all have, is
running to God.
God says run to me, cling to me, reattach to the vine that you
were always designed to drawfrom.
And so it seems that God allowsus to experience our weakness
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in our lives because it pointsus back to him.
Remember, the thorn itselfdidn't make Paul weak.
It magnified his weakness andreminded him that he needed the
Lord.
And that's how the Lord seesweakness.
But if that's how the Lord seesweakness, then that brings us
to our third point, and that'show we can see our weakness.
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You see, in the final verses ofour passage today, paul says
therefore, I will boast all themore gladly of my weaknesses so
that the power of Christ mayrest upon me.
For the sake of Christ, thenI'm content with weaknesses,
insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities, for when I am weak
then I am strong.
Knowing where his strengthcomes from, paul is now not
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afraid to face anything that maycome his way, whether it's
calamities, hardships, you nameit, paul's ready to face it, but
not because of who he is, butbecause he knows who's with him.
In verse nine he says that thepower of Christ may rest upon me
, and in that Paul's making abold statement that is hard for
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us to catch in the Englishlanguage, but that language
there.
Rest upon me is the samelanguage used in the Old
Testament to talk about theglory cloud of God, the presence
of God dwelling on thetabernacle of Moses.
Exodus, chapter 40, where thishappens, says that the power of
God there was so powerful thatMoses could not enter the tent.
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That is the power of the gloryof God, and Moses is not even
able to enter it yet.
Now it's that power that wantsto enter our weakness, in the
parts that you're most scared toshow of yourself.
That's where God, in his mostpowerful place, wants to go.
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It's an encouraging andbeautiful truth.
In fact, god says that it is inour weakness that we are most
experienced as power, and thequestion then for us today is do
we understand the power thatrests upon us?
The Bible says that the samespirit that raised Jesus Christ
from the dead now lives in us,and it's living and acting.
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There's power that can give usstrength to accomplish whatever
task is before us, and we don'thave to be intimidated by what
lies before us.
You know, there's a prettyfamous story that all this kind
of makes me think of.
It's in the Bible, going backto Exodus, actually the story of
Moses, and you've probablyheard of it.
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It's the story of the burningbush and Moses.
If you're familiar with it,you'll remember that God comes
to Moses in a burning bush andhe starts talking to him about
how he's now going to call Mosesto go free the Israelites from
Egypt and Pharaoh.
But Moses, surprisingly,doesn't really want to Imagine
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that.
I think most of us today, if weget called to some really
awesome job, we'd probably leapat it, but nonetheless, some
really awesome job we'd probablyleap at it, but nonetheless,
moses somehow is being reallycoy and he doesn't want to go.
He starts saying things likeGod, you know, I have a speech
impediment.
I'm just, I'm not the guy, Idon't measure up.
I think you maybe got the wrongMoses.
I don't know, there's anotherwilderness down, you know, a
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couple of miles down the road.
Maybe you should go check thatout.
But of miles down the road,maybe you should go check that
out.
But God, being patient, says no, no, no, I have this for you.
But Moses keeps refusing.
And then the Bible says, afterMoses' third time refusing, the
Lord's anger kindled againstMoses.
Why did it kindle against Moses?
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Wasn't Moses being humble?
Isn't that what God wants?
Maybe it was some sort of falsehumility.
Moses was saying, you know, no,no, I don't want to go.
But he really did and he wasjust kind of being, you know
again, playing coy.
But no, it doesn't seem that itwas even that.
You see, what had made God soangry is that Moses had
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forgotten who called him angryis that Moses had forgotten who
called him.
Moses had forgotten who formedthe mouth, who formed and
created all of life.
He had his eyes fully onhimself and they were not at all
on God.
And so he looked at the taskbefore him and he only saw
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inability instead of looking atthe one who is completely able.
And so our question for us thismorning what do we do when we
have a task before us that seemsway too big for us to do?
Do we look to the Lord forstrength?
Or maybe we look to ourselvesfor strength?
Because if we trust inourselves, let me tell you, even
if you think you can accomplishthings, you're missing out on
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the greater strength.
You see, the story of Mosescould have gone another way.
Let me paint the picture foryou Moses comes to God and
there's a burning bush, and Godcalls him to go do this thing.
And a little thing about Mosesthat maybe you know.
For those that aren't aware,moses was raised by the daughter
of Pharaoh, so, for what it'sworth, he probably had, it's
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fair to say, a better educationthan most Israelites in that
region of the world.
I think Moses would have beencompletely justified to say
you're right, I'm the guy, letme go do this.
Even despite his speechimpediment he has it and,
honestly, if Moses had done that, he maybe could have gotten
some sort of good plea dealgoing.
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He maybe could have gotten somereduced work hours or whatever
it may have been.
I mean, he had some existingrelationships.
He had some, again, knowledgeof their culture.
But even if Moses had done that, let me tell you he would not
have had the power to send theplagues that would bend the will
of Pharaoh.
He would not have had the powerto send the plagues that would
bend the will of Pharaoh.
He would not have had the powerto part the waters to bring a
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whole tribe of people across anocean.
He would not have had the powerto provide for that same tribe
of people in a wilderness wherethere was no food or water.
You see, moses could haverelied on himself and it would
have gotten the people nowhere.
It's only God who can do thethings that are seemingly
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impossible, and so the questionis, why would we wanna rely on a
power lesser than that Even thestrongest people cannot do what
God can.
And this morning, it doesn'tmatter whether you see your
inadequacies in yourself, orstrength in yourself, or
strength in yourself.
There's only one strength thatreally matters, and because we
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have that strength, we canboldly go face whatever it is
that we need.
Do you look to that strengthdaily?
Do you look to that strength?
Maybe it's in the workplace,when you're about to go give a
presentation and you just have alot riding on the line for that
meeting and you just feel soweak and your heart is pounding.
(29:30):
Do you just cry out, jesus, I'mweak.
Jesus, I need your strengthright now, jesus, I need you to
empower me if this is your will.
You to empower me if this isyour will.
Or maybe it's at home.
Maybe you just had a child andyou're looking at the baby in
your hands and you're justthinking to yourself Lord, I
have no idea how I'm supposed toraise this child appropriately.
(29:52):
I don't know if I have thestrength.
Maybe you're the youngs and youalready have four and you're
like a fifth one.
What are we doing here?
You know?
But whatever it may be, youjust cry out God, I need you.
You cry out to friends that youmay have and say, hey, I need
help in this endeavor, I can'tdo it on my own.
(30:14):
And the good news is, becausewe're past comparison, that's
not how we live.
We have the freedom to sharethose weaknesses with each other
, to ask each other to come intoour weaknesses.
Whatever our situation is, wecan see our weakness as an
opportunity to trust the Lord,to witness his great power, and
(30:35):
therefore we can be all the moreconfident and emboldened to run
headstrong into whateverobstacle it is that we have in
front of us.
And I'll close with this.
I suspect for some of you thismorning, you may be hearing all
this and you might be askingwell, this isn't my experience
of life.
You see, I've tried to lean onthe Lord for strength, I've
tried to trust in Him and Idon't see deliverance in my
(30:58):
weakness.
I don't feel powerful at all.
And let me remind you andencourage you this morning While
God always brings strength inthis life, he doesn't always
bring deliverance in this life.
And for you, I wanna invite youto look at the next chapter of
2 Corinthians, chapter 13.
Paul goes on to say Christ isnot weak in dealing with you,
(31:20):
but he is powerful among you,for he was crucified in weakness
but lives by the power of God,for we also are weak in him, but
in dealing with you we willlive, and with him by the power
of God.
Jesus knows weakness.
He has always been infinitelypowerful.
That was true since thebeginning of time.
(31:41):
He has always been infinitelypowerful.
That was true since thebeginning of time.
But he put on weakness too whenhe came to earth.
And in him we have this perfectcontradiction of complete
vulnerability and weaknessmeeting perfect strength.
And in his humiliation, the Godwho formed and spun the
galaxies of the universewillingly took on and humbled
himself to a point that wasweaker than any of us ever have.
(32:05):
Jesus was on the cross and hewas so weak that he couldn't
even take care of himself.
In weakness, he had to haveanother man carry his cross for
him.
In weakness, he had to cry outfor a drink of water.
Jesus knows weakness and heunderstands your pain.
He understands your waiting.
He's waiting on the cross,crying out my God, my God, why
(32:29):
have you forsaken me?
But God used Jesus's weaknessto bring about the redemption of
the world.
And while no one else in theworld could have seen it on
Calvary, jesus did.
He knew what was happening, andbecause he knew he could then
trust his heavenly father, hetrusted that the cross was not
(32:50):
the end and it was the power ofGod that would then raise him.
And now it surely did, and he'senthroned above heaven in all
power and all glory.
Though you can't see the meaningin your weakness this morning,
though you can't see thedeliverance in your weakness
this morning, look to the onewho was on the cross.
(33:13):
Look to him and trust him,follow him.
Dare to believe that in theunknown there's hope on the
other side, and it's because ourpowerful and loving father
cares for us.
There will be a day when ourweakness is fully gone, whether
(33:35):
that's today, tomorrow orsometime later.
There will be a day when wewill do what we were always
meant to do, to rest in theglory of the truly strong one,
and we will sing that he aloneis worthy, and that is good news
for those who are weak today.
(33:56):
Pray with me, lord.
We just come and we confessthat we are just like our
fathers and mothers, just likeAdam and Eve.
We want to be able to rely onourselves, and so there's some
of us that you know areconfident enough to do that.
And then there's some of usthat maybe aren't, but both are
(34:19):
doing the same thing, god.
If we're insecure in ourweakness, it's because we want
to be able to rely on ourselves,and if we rely on ourselves,
it's because we are blind to ourweakness, and so I pray that
you would expose our weaknessand let it draw us to you.
Your word says to him who isable to do immeasurably more
than all we ask or imagine.
(34:39):
So, god, teach us to desire tosee that, teach us to ask to see
that and teach us to trust inthat.
Pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
Hello everyone.
This is Pastor Damien.
You're listening to SermonAudio from New City, orlando.
At New City, we believe all ofus need all of Jesus for all of
life.
For more resources, visit ourwebsite at newcityorlandocom.
Thanks for listening.
Raquel West (00:20):
Good morning.
Please pray this corporateprayer of illumination with me.
Heavenly Father, your word istruth.
By your spirit, give us ears tohear and hearts to believe your
word with joy through JesusChrist, our Lord, amen.
(00:40):
Today's scripture reading comesfrom 2 Corinthians 12, 1
through 10.
I must go on boasting, thoughthere is nothing to be gained by
it.
I will go on to visions andrevelations of the Lord.
I know a man in Christ who, 14years ago, was caught up to the
(01:01):
third heaven, whether in body orout of the body, I don't know,
but God knows.
And I know that this man wascaught up to the third heaven,
whether in body or out of thebody, I don't know, but God
knows.
And I know that this man wascaught up into paradise, whether
in the body or out of the body,I don't know.
God knows.
And he heard things that cannotbe told, which man may not
utter.
On behalf of this I will boast,but on my own behalf I will not
(01:26):
boast, except of my weaknesses,though if I should wish to boast
, I would not be a fool, for Iwould be speaking the truth.
But I refrain from it so thatno one may think more of me than
he sees in me or hears from me.
So to keep me from becomingconceited because of the
(01:46):
surpassing greatness of therevelations, a thorn was given
me in the flesh, a messenger ofSatan, to harass me, to keep me
from becoming conceited.
Three times I pleaded with theLord about this, that it should
leave me, but he said to me mygrace is sufficient for you, for
(02:10):
my power is made perfect inweakness.
Therefore, I will boast all themore gladly of my weaknesses,
so that the power of Christ mayrest upon me.
For the sake of Christ, then, Iam content with weaknesses,
insults, hardships, persecutionsand calamities, for when I am
(02:37):
weak, then I am strong.
This is God's word.
Connor Bonello (02:43):
Well, thank you, raquel for the reading and
Jason for the introduction.
Yeah, my name is Connor.
I'm an intern here.
I haven't had a chance to meetyou.
Feel free to come meet me afterthe service.
Well, this morning we're goingto be jumping into a new sermon
series for the month of July.
We're titling it Preach yourHeart Out.
So throughout the month of Julywe're going to go through a
(03:07):
series of passages that arechosen personally by the
preacher.
So there's not gonna benecessarily a common thread
through them all, but there willbe a common posture.
The posture is gonna be one oftenderness, tenderness, of
things the Lord has laid on ourheart towards who our God is and
what his mission is for us herein Orlando.
(03:28):
So with that, today I decided totalk about weakness, and
weakness is kind of a trickysubject.
We're all really fine and happyto talk about weakness in the
abstract.
We talk about weakness and whatit means.
That's great.
But then, when we start to talkabout weakness in ourselves,
things become a little bit moredifficult.
(03:48):
We don't necessarily want totalk about weakness, but the
truth is that life is hard andthat we often come across
certain challenges where we comeface-to-face with our
weaknesses.
We come face-to-face with ourinadequacies and we have to ask
ourselves in those moments whatis it that I'm to do?
(04:08):
Perhaps you know, we can allthink of a time where you come
before a challenge and you hearthe voice.
It could be internal orexternal and it'll tell you
you're not good enough, you'renot able.
You may believe it, you may not, but it's a voice that you hear
.
And to some of us in this room,there's gonna be two groups of
(04:29):
people.
Some of us are gonna respond toweakness and you're gonna kind
of recoil, you're gonna kind ofshut down, you're gonna be all
too familiar when we talk aboutweakness today.
You're well aware of yourinadequacies.
And for you, I want to inviteyou this morning that God has
come and called to invite you tohis strength and he offers you
(04:51):
hope.
But then there's another groupof people that this message is
for this morning, and it's goingto be some of us in this room,
and that's that we actually arequite confident in our abilities
.
We don't really associateweakness with ourself.
But for you, I want to ask youto go low this morning and to
ask God, where he might show andshare weakness, for you to
(05:15):
learn to rely on his strength.
And so, with that, wherever youfind yourself on that spectrum
again, we all can relate to whenwe come across this idea of
whether it be yourself orsomeone else saying you're not
good enough.
And what do we do in thatmoment?
Do you decide to defendyourself and puff up yourself in
(05:39):
pride and explain all thereasons that you are worthy to
do whatever the task is beforeyou, or do you shut down?
Do you kind of spiral into,maybe, self-doubt and inaction?
The world will tell you thatthe response to this, the
healthy response, is to say no,you're wrong, I am good enough.
(06:00):
But what we'll see today in ourmessage is that Paul kind of
goes a different direction andin fact, the Bible turns the
accusation of you not being goodenough on its head.
It doesn't say, no, I am goodenough.
The Bible actually says you'reright, I'm not good enough.
And in fact I never was goodenough.
(06:22):
It's not how I was designed.
I wasn't designed to rely on myown strength.
I was designed to rely on themaker of the universe.
I was designed to be a branchthat channels his power and
nothing less.
The question for us thismorning is do we believe it?
The truth is that we have allthe power we may need, and it's
(06:47):
not our power, it's God's.
And with that we're going to seewhat Paul has to say in 2
Corinthians, where he'saddressing the matter.
You see, throughout the letterof 2 Corinthians we're jumping
into the back end of it, but wesee, in the first beginning of
the opening letter he talksabout this burden that he's
experiencing that's beyond hisstrength, and that it requires
(07:09):
him to lean on the Lord.
And then, later on in thechapter, chapter four, he'll
talk about how God has thisimmense power and he's decided
to put it in these jars of clay,this foolishness.
That makes no sense.
That you have this immensepower, but it's in this fragile,
weak object.
And then, lastly, hisargument's building to a climax
in our passage today, where hetalks about weakness and
(07:31):
strength being made perfect inweakness.
So to explore Paul's point,we're gonna have three points to
look at.
The first one's gonna be howthe world sees weakness.
The second's gonna be how theLord sees weakness, and then the
third point will be how we cansee our weakness.
So our first point how theworld sees weakness.
The world sees weakness throughthe lens of comparison to
(07:55):
others, which is why comparisonis the first thing that we go to
when we notice weakness inourselves.
I mean, for example, we're allokay with weakness if everybody
has that weakness right.
Nobody can dunk a basketballlike LeBron James, so we're not
really embarrassed about thefact that we can't do that.
We all have skin where if youhave a sharp object and it you
(08:17):
know were to pierce that skin,everybody, that's going to
happen to them, and so we'reokay with the fact that we have
our vulnerabilities.
It's only when we see aweakness in ourself that isn't
in someone else that we start tothink less of ourselves, or the
opposite.
It's only when we see aweakness in others that's not in
ourselves, that we begin tobecome prideful.
(08:38):
And so Paul, aware of thishuman impulse, begins this part
of the passage by addressingcomparison.
Chapter 12 begins with I will goon boasting, though there is
nothing to be gained by it.
He then goes on to describethis great revelation that he
can boast about for the next sixverses, of where he went to go
see heaven in of itself.
(09:00):
You should know well why isPaul going on about this
boasting?
What's the accusation againsthim?
Well, you see, first centuryCorinth was a lot like 21st
century America.
It's all about people that havecome to make a name for
themselves in a city that's fullof opportunity and development.
And so, with that, thatatmosphere seemed to have
(09:22):
influenced a group in the churchof these sort of super apostles
.
These people were going aroundand they were essentially
competing with Paul for thetitle of apostleship and they
were telling people all thereasons why Paul wasn't the guy.
They would say things like oh,he's lame, he can't speak well
and you know, paul only alludesto a couple things, but
(09:43):
basically they're trying todiscredit what Paul can do and
they're trying to demonstratetheir strengths.
And well, what do we see whenthat happens?
Is Paul kind of initially, inchapter 11, talks about how this
is a foolish way to go aboutwho is an apostle?
But then he decides to playalong just for a moment and
(10:07):
that's what we see in ourchapter today, the beginning.
He starts to talk about avision he had of heaven, where
he went to go see the throneroom of God, and then he kind of
responds have these apostlesseen that?
It's well played, it's a prettygood point by Paul's part, but
he doesn't just do that becausehe's wanting to demonstrate that
he is the guy.
If you notice, he says it in akind of strange term.
(10:29):
He's talking about it in thethird person.
He's saying I know of a man whohas gone to heaven.
And then he goes on to say youknow, but of him I will boast,
but of myself I will not boast.
And that might sound a littlebit confusing to us today, but
what we genuinely think ishappening here is Paul is
talking about himself, but he'sjust saying it in a way that
(10:50):
can't be confused with an actualboast.
He's demonstrating that if he'sgoing to boast, he can and he
can beat the super apostles attheir own game, but he doesn't
want to, and that's why he'llagain say this is foolishness
and it's not how I'm going to bedefined as an apostle.
So, after pulling his ace ofspades, what does Paul then do?
(11:14):
He tells them that this isfoolishness, that this is not
how the kingdom of God is built.
So why did Paul then go to thatlength to describe his
accomplishments?
Because he wants to demonstratethe hypocrisy of these apostles
that were discrediting him.
He was saying we preach Christand I'm not preaching Paul, and
(11:37):
yet these people are preachingthemselves.
It's the power of Christ alonethat has done anything in any of
our lives, and so it's easythis morning to maybe kind of
look at the super apostles, tolook at these people that want
to rely on their own strengthand point the finger and maybe
talk about how silly or foolishthey are.
(11:59):
But I think the truth is that wekind of do that ourselves too,
Whether it's coworkers,neighbors, family members, name
it.
You know other parents.
We like to look across thefence and we like to judge, we
like to compare, take your pickof whatever setting you want,
but just think about it for amoment.
At one point, maybe there'ssome responsibility, some task,
(12:21):
some calling that you foundyourself to and you're
performing at it, you're workingat it and you actually feel
pretty good about yourself.
You feel like you're actuallydoing it pretty well.
And then what maybe happens issomeone comes along new neighbor
, new parent, new coworker,whatever it may be and they
actually end up being prettygood at their job.
(12:42):
In fact, some may say they're alittle bit better at it than
you.
And so what is your initialresponse?
Maybe Is that you start tobecome consumed with the margin
of difference between you andthat other individual.
You start to think about waysin which you can catch up or
ways that you do other thingsbetter than they do.
(13:03):
Before you know it, you're moreconcerned about that person and
what they're doing as opposed tothe original responsibility or
task that you had taken onBefore.
You're concerned about, maybe,the parenting of your household.
You're more concerned.
You're totally consumed aboutwhat's going on in their
household.
You're totally consumed aboutwhat's going on in their work
responsibilities.
We become so focused on thecompetition that we're no longer
(13:30):
reminded of and thinking of theoriginal objective.
Maybe you even once thought that, you know, I would never be
that way.
But then one day, before youknow it, you have.
You see, why is that?
And that's because the worldsees weakness as a reason to be
(13:53):
lesser.
But Paul again is clear thatweakness is not a lesser thing,
and so that'll transition us nowinto our second point.
If the world sees weakness asan opportunity to be lesser than
those around you, how does theBible see it?
How does the Lord see it?
And it's actually humanity'sdesire to be or, excuse me.
(14:17):
So I'll start with verse seven.
That's where we'll head to nextin our passage, and after
describing his visions in heaven, he'll go on to say so.
To keep me from becomingconceited because of the
surpassing greatness of therevelations, a thorn was given
me in the flesh, a messenger ofSatan to harass me, to keep me
(14:37):
from becoming conceited.
You see, the Lord is keepingthese super apostles from
becoming boastful in Paul'srebuke of them, but now we see
something interesting.
Paul himself now has a hardship.
He has a, he has a thorn in hisflesh, and it's a messenger of
Satan.
(14:57):
What's weirder, though, thanjust being a messenger of Satan
is that that messenger was sentby God.
Now, god doesn't say listen tothat messenger.
That's an important thing tonote, but nonetheless, he does
say that God sent a messenger.
Well, why is that?
Well, paul says that God did itto keep him from becoming
(15:21):
conceited.
You see, paul just got donerebuking these super apostles
about all the reasons that theywere living in foolishness, and
then he goes and he turns aroundand he just says I'm no better
than them.
I'm just as capable as whatthey're capable of, and God and
his mercy has actually deliveredme from that by giving me this
(15:44):
hardship.
He sees his hardship, hisweakness, as mercy.
You see, the truth is that weall are vulnerable to becoming
conceited, and our weakness isan opportunity to come in touch
with our reality.
(16:04):
What we can see from this storyagain, god gives this thorn to
Paul.
What we can see from that isthat the hardest things in our
lives, the things that you aremost upset and frustrated with
about yourself, that very thingGod is sovereign over.
He's in control.
There wasn't an error in thefactory machine when he was
(16:27):
building you.
He wasn't making cookies and heaccidentally put baking soda
instead of baking powder inthere.
Not a baker, but I think that'show that works.
That would be a mess up.
No, the Bible is clear that Godis sovereign over everything
and he is not too weak to handlewhatever situation you find
yourself in.
He's not looking down fromheaven saying, oh no, what do I
(16:50):
do now?
I didn't see this coming.
No, he's in control.
But maybe that leads us to asecond question this morning.
Then If God's in control, whywon't he remove this weakness so
that I can better accomplishwhat he has before me?
Right?
(17:10):
You frustratingly look at Godand you say you know, if I
didn't have this issue, I couldbetter disciple my kids.
If work wasn't so challenging,then I would be able to have
more energy to exemplify Christin the workplace.
You know, I'd be able to lovepeople better, god, if you
(17:30):
didn't give me such a hardchildhood where I didn't learn
how to manage my emotions better.
There's so many different waysthat life has just kind of
kicked us and brought us downand we just kind of ask God, why
?
Why did this come to me?
If you want me to go and shareyour light with others, it
becomes such a hindrance to whatGod has called us.
(17:50):
Well, what's interesting isthat we see Paul pleads the same
thing, and I think that's acomfort for us this morning.
He says three times I pleadedwith the Lord about this, that
it should leave me, but God saidto me my grace is sufficient
for you, for my power is madeperfect in weakness.
(18:13):
Paul pleads and yet God says no.
But what's interesting is thatGod's answer is not you know
I'll remove this from you, justwait a little bit longer.
It's simply, my grace issufficient.
You know I'll remove this fromyou, just wait a little bit
longer.
It's simply, my grace issufficient for you.
God, in our weakness, wants usto learn to rely on him and
(18:38):
that's because he wants Paul tosee that he was always weak.
You see, being weak is notsomething you can possibly avoid
, it's human.
The thorn wasn't there to makePaul weak.
It was there to show him hisweakness.
That was already there.
The thorn was there to helpPaul see that he needed God and
God's strength and to rely onthe Lord.
(19:00):
It kind of reminds me of aconversation that I had with a
friend recently.
I was talking with him and Iwas talking about just this
weakness that I felt myself andI was just really frustrated,
just, you know, with you knowhow I felt God was not bringing
deliverance or healing.
(19:21):
And so I was describing it tohim and he responded you know,
what do you feel when youexperience that weakness?
And I told him that, you know,I can kind of maybe get shut
down.
I can maybe kind of get down onmyself.
I don't like seeing weakness inmyself, and so, you know, I can
(19:42):
kind of just get my head maybespiral.
I would probably be in thatgroup of people from the intro
this morning.
And my friend responded youknow, I think you see weakness
as shame.
You see it as a shameful thingto be weak.
And of course, my response waswell, of course weakness is
(20:05):
shame.
Weakness is is is showing thatyou can't be relied upon, it's
not something that you want toshare with people and it's not
something you want to be.
And then he replied to me justsimply weakness is not shameful,
weakness is human, and I don'tknow about you, but that really
struck a chord with me when hetold me that weakness is not
shameful, weakness is human andI don't know about you, but that
(20:27):
really struck a chord with mewhen he told me that and it got
me thinking.
Weakness, you know, has existedsince the beginning of humanity.
Now, ever since the fall, it isintertwined with our brokenness
, and so we need to be wise inhow we differentiate the two.
We do have a weakness towardssin, and that's something we
(20:50):
need to actively work against,but weakness itself existed in
the garden.
A biblical view of weakness isdependence.
In fact, it was our desire tonot be weak that actually caused
sin to enter the world.
It was man's desire to bestrong and to rely on themself
(21:14):
that actually created everysingle wrong that's ever existed
.
Today.
A hatred of weakness hascreated every pain and
brokenness that we see in thisworld when we trust in ourselves
to handle our weakness.
It doesn't remove our weakness,it just blinds us to it.
When we reject how God has madeus, how he's designed us, to
(21:38):
lean in and rely on him, that'swhen pain and destruction ensue.
And so what the Lord wants usto do in our lives is to look at
our weakness and to run to him.
It's what we were supposed todo in the garden.
We're supposed to rely on him,just walk with him, just eat
what he's provided, to not knoweverything, because we don't
(21:59):
need to.
Like I mentioned, there might betwo different people in this
room.
Some of you shut down and maybelive in misery when you
experience weakness.
Others will live in denial andmaybe puff up your pride, but
both of these are wrongresponses to when we experience
weakness.
It doesn't matter if you run toyourself or if you run to you
(22:20):
know quietness and isolation.
The only true response toweakness, which we all have, is
running to God.
God says run to me, cling to me, reattach to the vine that you
were always designed to drawfrom.
And so it seems that God allowsus to experience our weakness
(22:41):
in our lives because it pointsus back to him.
Remember, the thorn itselfdidn't make Paul weak.
It magnified his weakness andreminded him that he needed the
Lord.
And that's how the Lord seesweakness.
But if that's how the Lord seesweakness, then that brings us
to our third point, and that'show we can see our weakness.
(23:02):
You see, in the final verses ofour passage today, paul says
therefore, I will boast all themore gladly of my weaknesses so
that the power of Christ mayrest upon me.
For the sake of Christ, thenI'm content with weaknesses,
insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities, for when I am weak
then I am strong.
Knowing where his strengthcomes from, paul is now not
(23:27):
afraid to face anything that maycome his way, whether it's
calamities, hardships, you nameit, paul's ready to face it, but
not because of who he is, butbecause he knows who's with him.
In verse nine he says that thepower of Christ may rest upon me
, and in that Paul's making abold statement that is hard for
(23:47):
us to catch in the Englishlanguage, but that language
there.
Rest upon me is the samelanguage used in the Old
Testament to talk about theglory cloud of God, the presence
of God dwelling on thetabernacle of Moses.
Exodus, chapter 40, where thishappens, says that the power of
God there was so powerful thatMoses could not enter the tent.
(24:09):
That is the power of the gloryof God, and Moses is not even
able to enter it yet.
Now it's that power that wantsto enter our weakness, in the
parts that you're most scared toshow of yourself.
That's where God, in his mostpowerful place, wants to go.
(24:30):
It's an encouraging andbeautiful truth.
In fact, god says that it is inour weakness that we are most
experienced as power, and thequestion then for us today is do
we understand the power thatrests upon us?
The Bible says that the samespirit that raised Jesus Christ
from the dead now lives in us,and it's living and acting.
(24:52):
There's power that can give usstrength to accomplish whatever
task is before us, and we don'thave to be intimidated by what
lies before us.
You know, there's a prettyfamous story that all this kind
of makes me think of.
It's in the Bible, going backto Exodus, actually the story of
Moses, and you've probablyheard of it.
(25:13):
It's the story of the burningbush and Moses.
If you're familiar with it,you'll remember that God comes
to Moses in a burning bush andhe starts talking to him about
how he's now going to call Mosesto go free the Israelites from
Egypt and Pharaoh.
But Moses, surprisingly,doesn't really want to Imagine
(25:34):
that.
I think most of us today, if weget called to some really
awesome job, we'd probably leapat it, but nonetheless, some
really awesome job we'd probablyleap at it, but nonetheless,
moses somehow is being reallycoy and he doesn't want to go.
He starts saying things likeGod, you know, I have a speech
impediment.
I'm just, I'm not the guy, Idon't measure up.
I think you maybe got the wrongMoses.
I don't know, there's anotherwilderness down, you know, a
(25:56):
couple of miles down the road.
Maybe you should go check thatout.
But of miles down the road,maybe you should go check that
out.
But God, being patient, says no, no, no, I have this for you.
But Moses keeps refusing.
And then the Bible says, afterMoses' third time refusing, the
Lord's anger kindled againstMoses.
Why did it kindle against Moses?
(26:17):
Wasn't Moses being humble?
Isn't that what God wants?
Maybe it was some sort of falsehumility.
Moses was saying, you know, no,no, I don't want to go.
But he really did and he wasjust kind of being, you know
again, playing coy.
But no, it doesn't seem that itwas even that.
You see, what had made God soangry is that Moses had
(26:39):
forgotten who called him angryis that Moses had forgotten who
called him.
Moses had forgotten who formedthe mouth, who formed and
created all of life.
He had his eyes fully onhimself and they were not at all
on God.
And so he looked at the taskbefore him and he only saw
(27:00):
inability instead of looking atthe one who is completely able.
And so our question for us thismorning what do we do when we
have a task before us that seemsway too big for us to do?
Do we look to the Lord forstrength?
Or maybe we look to ourselvesfor strength?
Because if we trust inourselves, let me tell you, even
if you think you can accomplishthings, you're missing out on
(27:22):
the greater strength.
You see, the story of Mosescould have gone another way.
Let me paint the picture foryou Moses comes to God and
there's a burning bush, and Godcalls him to go do this thing.
And a little thing about Mosesthat maybe you know.
For those that aren't aware,moses was raised by the daughter
of Pharaoh, so, for what it'sworth, he probably had, it's
(27:43):
fair to say, a better educationthan most Israelites in that
region of the world.
I think Moses would have beencompletely justified to say
you're right, I'm the guy, letme go do this.
Even despite his speechimpediment he has it and,
honestly, if Moses had done that, he maybe could have gotten
some sort of good plea dealgoing.
(28:03):
He maybe could have gotten somereduced work hours or whatever
it may have been.
I mean, he had some existingrelationships.
He had some, again, knowledgeof their culture.
But even if Moses had done that, let me tell you he would not
have had the power to send theplagues that would bend the will
of Pharaoh.
He would not have had the powerto send the plagues that would
bend the will of Pharaoh.
He would not have had the powerto part the waters to bring a
(28:25):
whole tribe of people across anocean.
He would not have had the powerto provide for that same tribe
of people in a wilderness wherethere was no food or water.
You see, moses could haverelied on himself and it would
have gotten the people nowhere.
It's only God who can do thethings that are seemingly
(28:48):
impossible, and so the questionis, why would we wanna rely on a
power lesser than that Even thestrongest people cannot do what
God can.
And this morning, it doesn'tmatter whether you see your
inadequacies in yourself, orstrength in yourself, or
strength in yourself.
There's only one strength thatreally matters, and because we
(29:08):
have that strength, we canboldly go face whatever it is
that we need.
Do you look to that strengthdaily?
Do you look to that strength?
Maybe it's in the workplace,when you're about to go give a
presentation and you just have alot riding on the line for that
meeting and you just feel soweak and your heart is pounding.
(29:30):
Do you just cry out, jesus, I'mweak.
Jesus, I need your strengthright now, jesus, I need you to
empower me if this is your will.
You to empower me if this isyour will.
Or maybe it's at home.
Maybe you just had a child andyou're looking at the baby in
your hands and you're justthinking to yourself Lord, I
have no idea how I'm supposed toraise this child appropriately.
(29:52):
I don't know if I have thestrength.
Maybe you're the youngs and youalready have four and you're
like a fifth one.
What are we doing here?
You know?
But whatever it may be, youjust cry out God, I need you.
You cry out to friends that youmay have and say, hey, I need
help in this endeavor, I can'tdo it on my own.
(30:14):
And the good news is, becausewe're past comparison, that's
not how we live.
We have the freedom to sharethose weaknesses with each other
, to ask each other to come intoour weaknesses.
Whatever our situation is, wecan see our weakness as an
opportunity to trust the Lord,to witness his great power, and
(30:35):
therefore we can be all the moreconfident and emboldened to run
headstrong into whateverobstacle it is that we have in
front of us.
And I'll close with this.
I suspect for some of you thismorning, you may be hearing all
this and you might be askingwell, this isn't my experience
of life.
You see, I've tried to lean onthe Lord for strength, I've
tried to trust in Him and Idon't see deliverance in my
(30:58):
weakness.
I don't feel powerful at all.
And let me remind you andencourage you this morning While
God always brings strength inthis life, he doesn't always
bring deliverance in this life.
And for you, I wanna invite youto look at the next chapter of
2 Corinthians, chapter 13.
Paul goes on to say Christ isnot weak in dealing with you,
(31:20):
but he is powerful among you,for he was crucified in weakness
but lives by the power of God,for we also are weak in him, but
in dealing with you we willlive, and with him by the power
of God.
Jesus knows weakness.
He has always been infinitelypowerful.
That was true since thebeginning of time.
(31:41):
He has always been infinitelypowerful.
That was true since thebeginning of time.
But he put on weakness too whenhe came to earth.
And in him we have this perfectcontradiction of complete
vulnerability and weaknessmeeting perfect strength.
And in his humiliation, the Godwho formed and spun the
galaxies of the universewillingly took on and humbled
himself to a point that wasweaker than any of us ever have.
(32:05):
Jesus was on the cross and hewas so weak that he couldn't
even take care of himself.
In weakness, he had to haveanother man carry his cross for
him.
In weakness, he had to cry outfor a drink of water.
Jesus knows weakness and heunderstands your pain.
He understands your waiting.
He's waiting on the cross,crying out my God, my God, why
(32:29):
have you forsaken me?
But God used Jesus's weaknessto bring about the redemption of
the world.
And while no one else in theworld could have seen it on
Calvary, jesus did.
He knew what was happening, andbecause he knew he could then
trust his heavenly father, hetrusted that the cross was not
(32:50):
the end and it was the power ofGod that would then raise him.
And now it surely did, and he'senthroned above heaven in all
power and all glory.
Though you can't see the meaningin your weakness this morning,
though you can't see thedeliverance in your weakness
this morning, look to the onewho was on the cross.
(33:13):
Look to him and trust him,follow him.
Dare to believe that in theunknown there's hope on the
other side, and it's because ourpowerful and loving father
cares for us.
There will be a day when ourweakness is fully gone, whether
(33:35):
that's today, tomorrow orsometime later.
There will be a day when wewill do what we were always
meant to do, to rest in theglory of the truly strong one,
and we will sing that he aloneis worthy, and that is good news
for those who are weak today.
(33:56):
Pray with me, lord.
We just come and we confessthat we are just like our
fathers and mothers, just likeAdam and Eve.
We want to be able to rely onourselves, and so there's some
of us that you know areconfident enough to do that.
And then there's some of usthat maybe aren't, but both are
(34:19):
doing the same thing, god.
If we're insecure in ourweakness, it's because we want
to be able to rely on ourselves,and if we rely on ourselves,
it's because we are blind to ourweakness, and so I pray that
you would expose our weaknessand let it draw us to you.
Your word says to him who isable to do immeasurably more
than all we ask or imagine.
(34:39):
So, god, teach us to desire tosee that, teach us to ask to see
that and teach us to trust inthat.
Pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
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