Trading Our Weakness for God’s Strength
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2 Corinthians 4:1-12
Rev. Brian North – Westminster Presbyterian Chehalis, WA
July 25th, 2010
Sports often provide an interesting window into the nature of people. We’re able to see raw emotion, unbridled passion, and the true make-up of the people playing on the field or court. We see loss, pain, failure. As ABC used to say, we see the “Thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.”
One thing we’ve seen, and it seems to be more and more common in team sports, is individuals trying to raise themselves above the team. The glory that the person seeks isn’t for the team at that moment, but rather for their self.
It’s not that celebrating a touchdown or a game-winning basket is wrong, but it’s the spirit in which it’s celebrated. Or it’s the use of performance-enhancing drugs to make themselves better than they really are – maybe to be a better team player, but more likely to get into the record books for most home runs, touchdowns caught, and so forth. So much of sports is all about “ME.” Take a look at this video clip to get an overblown taste of what I mean (Warning: This is a video clip advertising Budweiser beer. Jesus doesn’t condemn drinking, so I think this is ok to use…but I’m not advocating the drinking of alcohol if you struggle with an addiction to it. I think you’ll appreciate the commercial for it’s insight into human nature.) (“Leon” Video clip). If You’re reading on-line, click here to watch the video.)
The whole series of commercials – there are 7 or 8 at least – that feature Leon portray him as someone who wants his team to do well – as long as it’s on his terms and benefits him personally – especially financially and with regards to his public image. In his mind, he’s the strong one, while all his teammates are weak. He doesn’t acknowledge his own weaknesses, such as the inability to hold on to the football, or his selfishness and lack of humility. Pride is a weakness for him.
Of course, it’s easy to pick on sports and media stars because their every move is scrutinized in the press and on TV. The greed and selfishness that exists in sports is magnified because of the amount of money they make and because of the publicity they receive. And we’ve also seen that kind of attitude displayed in the corporate world, the music industry, politics, and elsewhere.
But are those of us who don’t live in the limelight making millions of dollars necessarily any different? After all, we’re all human, stumbling around with the same weaknesses: temptations, selfishness, struggles, and sins. But this morning’s passage from Paul tells us that for the Christian, yes, there is a difference. The difference isn’t in our socio-economic status or what we do for a living. Rather, the difference is found in Jesus Christ. Through faith in Him, we trade our weakness for God’s strength. In doing that, we bring glory and honor to God, and we’re drawn into a closer relationship with Him.
In several places in this passage, Paul sheds light for us on what it means to be a humble servant and how as weak and fragile human beings we trade that weakness for God’s strength. By weak and fragile, I don’t simply mean that sometimes we get sick or break a leg. Rather, this is a weakness that encompasses our entire being: our spiritual lives, morality and ethics, tendencies toward selfishness and independence, our sinful nature, and so forth. This is then contrasted with God’s grace and power. Let me read a few of the verses that we just heard a few minutes ago, which illustrate this for us:
- Verse 1 says, “Therefore, since through God’s mercy, we have this ministry…” (I Corinthians 4:1). In other words, the ministry that each of us has before us is something that God has given us, not something that comes from ourselves.
- Verse 5, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” (I Corinthians 4:5). For the Christian, the focus is not on ourselves, but on Jesus Christ.
- Verse 7, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (I Corinthians 4:7). The treasure is the love, grace, truth, and power of God and all that is given to us in a relationship with Him. The jars of clay are us – humans, which like real jars are fragile, weak, and breakable.
- Verse 10, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” (I Corinthians 4:10). We always remember what Christ did for us on the cross so that we may share with others this life that is offered through his eternal life.
- Verse 11, “For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body” (I Corinthians 4:11). Similar to the last one, but here he speaks of our death – death to selfish ambitions, sin, and so forth, and not the remembrance of Jesus’ death, as in the previous verse. Again, we see the exaltation of Christ and the power of his that is revealed in and through us.
Each of these verses puts the emphasis on God and his power, his grace, his love, and more. They help us to see our weakness compared to the strength of God, but they tell us that: When we come into relationship with God, our weakness becomes God’s strength. God will use us in spite of our weaknesses and work through them, or he will transform them so that they become a strength through which God can be glorified. Either way, the focus is ultimately on God.
For many years I didn’t really understand what it meant that through our weaknesses God’s power or strength is displayed. The way I understood it that meant that if I wanted to be an effective preacher, I should be preaching in German, because I don’t know German. Or as I understood it, I should be sharing my gift of music through playing the electric bass or the organ for us each morning, because I can’t play the bass or the organ. You want to see a weakness in music? Put me on the organ! Or how many of us would feel comfortable about the financial state of our church if the people who kept track of such things had a weakness in arithmetic?
Quite frankly, I just never understood what it meant that God uses our weaknesses because it didn’t make any sense to me. Perhaps you’ve struggled with that as well. And for me, this passage brings those kinds of questions back to the surface for me.
I’ve shared this story with you before, but it bears repeating: I can remember when I was a freshman at Bellevue High School having to take a Washington State History class. It was required of all students to take state history for graduation. One of the components of the class was to give an oral report on some aspect of Washington State history. When my time came to give my report, I stood up in front of the class and looked out at my peers, staring back at me. I began to get nervous. I got light-headed, shook, sweated, fumbled around, said more “ummm’s” than you could count. It’s a complete miracle that I didn’t pass out. When I returned to my seat, I had absolutely no idea what had just come out of my mouth.
It was obvious to me, from that day forward, that public speaking was going to play absolutely no role in my future. There was no way I was ever again going to get in front of a group of people and give any kind of speech – let alone preach God’s Holy Word!
And yet, here I stand! What on earth happened along the way? There is only one response: God intervened. And that is where God’s power is able to be seen. You see: It’s not in the weakness itself where God’s power is shown; it’s in the overcoming and transforming of the weakness. For me, God did a couple things.
First, the Lord helped me to see that I can’t just get up in front of a group of people and expect that I’m going to have anything to say, and say it well, without preparation. God taught me to study and prepare for public speaking and for preaching, and to trust His leading in that preparation. Every sermon I craft begins with prayer, with reading the passage several times, letting it soak in, seeing what God seems to be raising up to my attention in the passage, studying key words, and so forth…all before typing out a word of the sermon. And in that process of preparation, and during the writing, too, I am continually leaning on the Lord for His wisdom and insight.
Second, God gave me small opportunities along the way to learn what it’s like to be in front of a group of people. God did that through ski school, through working as a waiter in several restaurants, through two youth ministry positions, through preaching classes in seminary, then preaching occasionally as an associate pastor for 4 years, and finally has brought me here for the last 3 ½ years. And through it all I’ve gotten more and more comfortable and confident in front of people. I don’t get light-headed and nervous the way I did back in High School. You don’t have to worry that I’m going to faint on a Sunday morning.
But it doesn’t end there, because this true story ultimately points to God. It’s not about the fact that I’ve overcome this phobia of speaking in front of people. It’s about God’s transformational power leading me through the deep waters of fear and moving beyond that fear so that God could be glorified through me; God gave me the courage to face that weakness and work on overcoming it and having it be transformed for his glory. And: Bringing glory and honor to God is what it’s all about. Much of my fear of speaking in front of people was abated after I re-dedicated my life to Christ. That was when I started speaking in front of groups larger than a ski-school class of 7 or 8 or a few people sitting at a table in a restaurant. It was after God became an acknowledged presence in my life that I started to lean into that grace and that transformational power. There have been other aspects of my life that have been changed by Jesus Christ as well, and all of those things lead me to live my life for him more and more.
Of course, overcoming a fear of public speaking is really pretty trivial compared to the things that many people in this world have overcome. Martin Luther King, Jr. was used by God to transform a nation in overcoming it’s weakness in how it perceived African-Americans – a transformation that is still in the works; Joni Eareckson Tada has overcome a diving accident that left her a quadriplegic to share God’s transformational power with people all over the world. I’m sure that each of you knows someone – maybe yourself – who has been led by the Lord to step out in faith and trust Him to overcome some weakness – physical, spiritual, mental, an addiction, or a behavioral weakness, whatever it might have been – to get to a new place, which has brought God much glory.
I like to think of the process of overcoming our weaknesses and allowing God to transform us in terms of a marriage. In marriage – or in any relationship for that matter – the way that always seems easiest is not to face the issues that are preventing the marriage from being what God wants it to be. Maybe there are hurt feelings, an addiction, lies, broken trust, or alienation that are road blocks to true love and friendship. These are weaknesses in the relationship that prevent it from growing. The easy way out is simply to live with those issues and ignore them.
But when we do that, we’re denying God’s healing and transforming work in our lives. It’s always scary to talk about a difficulty in a relationship such as that. It’s intimidating to express our feelings and initiate a conversation along those lines. But when we do that, God is able to enter in and bring about healing, and transform the relationship into something new. And when you break through to that new place, the relationship is so much stronger than it ever was or could have been. And through growth in our relationships – with our spouse, a friend, a sibling, and so on – we grow closer to the Lord and we bring honor and glory to Him.
It’s the same thing in facing our weaknesses. We could just continue to allow them to fester and hold us back. They could continue to be obstacles to following God where he’s leading and to being used by Him for his glory and his kingdom to be made known. And no doubt, facing some of those weaknesses and struggles is a scary thing. But when we let those fears dictate how we live, we’re letting our weaknesses get the best of us, rather than living in the transformational power of Jesus Christ.
The metaphor Paul uses is found in verse 7, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that this all-surpassing power is from God, and not from us.” The treasure is the relationship we have with God through faith in Jesus Christ. With that relationship comes God’s power to overcome our weaknesses, God’s power to cancel the effects of sin in our lives, God’s power to raise us up for eternity; God’s power to love our neighbors as God loves us…the list goes on. God’s power is infinite. And that power is in these jars of clay.
You and I are the jars of clay. Paul is making a contrast between the power of God and the jars of clay. They’re not the same. Where God’s power is infinite, the jars of clay are finite. There are cracks. There are holes. They have some strength on their own, but they break when dropped. There are imperfections.
Similarly, you and I have cracks, holes, and other imperfections in us. And just as with a cracked jar that what’s in side can leak out through the cracks, so the power of God can be leaked out through our imperfections, our weaknesses. God may ultimately take that weakness and fix it up so it’s a new found strength; but in the meantime, even our weaknesses can be instruments of God’s grace in the world around us. Perfect people aren’t what God is looking for or desiring to pour his power into. Rather, God takes imperfect jars of clay – like you and me – and fills us up with this treasure of his love, truth, grace, and power, and through us transforms people to live for him.
God may be saying to you this morning, “I know you perceive a weakness in your life. I know you have let it rule over you and have dominion over how you’ve lived your life and your faith. But if you’ll lean on me, I’ll give you the power to work through that weakness or to transform it and to use you for greater glory of Jesus Christ.” So, what’s holding you back? What is, or what are, your weaknesses? We’re all bent toward selfishness as we saw in the video near the start. Some of us have fears. Some of us have addictions. Some of us have anger management issues. Some of us aren’t nice to other people. Those are all weaknesses that God can work through and transform. What is the weakness that you’d like to give over to God and face with him leading you, to transform it into something that brings God glory? What are the cracks in the jar that is your life that you’re trying to hide, rather than letting God’s power shine through them and fill them up? Let’s bring them to God, acknowledge them before Him, and ask him to take those cracks and use them for his glory, for the growth of his kingdom deeper in us and wider through us. Let’s pray…Amen.
