Sermon for Saturday, July 6, 2024

7th Sunday after Pentecost

“When I am Weak, Then I am Strong”

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Let us pray: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. (Psalm 19:14)

The text for our meditation this evening is the Epistle lesson from 2 Corinthians 12:1-10. You are welcome to look at it, together with me, as printed in your bulletin.

All of our Scripture readings today tell of people who are trying to speak God’s Word but are being resisted and rejected. In the Old Testament lesson (Ezekiel 2:1-5), Ezekiel is called to be a prophet of God, but God warns him that he will be speaking to Israelites who have been stubborn and rebellious against Him. Ezekiel is still to speak God’s Word, saying, “Thus says the Lord,” whether the people hear or refuse to hear.

In the Gospel lesson, Mark 6:1-13, Jesus Himself has come to His hometown, Nazareth, where He had grown up, to teach in the synagogue there. Many people took offense at Him and what he was doing, though, including some of His own family. Jesus marveled at their unbelief but did not give up and kept doing His Heavenly Father’s will. He went on to other villages, and He began sending out His own disciples, two by two, also, preparing them for their future work of calling people everywhere to repentance and faith in Him.

Paul, also, in the chapter just before our text, in 2 Corinthians 11, speaks of challenges to his own ministry. Some people have come to Corinth claiming to be, in their own minds, “super-apostles,” boastful of their mission in the Lord. Very unfortunately, they were proclaiming another Jesus than the One Paul proclaimed, with a different spirit. They were, Paul says, false apostles, deceitful workmen. How was Paul going to deal with this

Since these false teachers had been so boastful in themselves and who they were, Paul says that he must do a little boasting himself, but in a different way. He says, at the end of Chapter 11, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.”

Paul also speaks of sufferings that he has had and then he says, “There is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak.” Paul had written and taught on other occasions, “Do not be anxious about anything," but here he admits his own weakness and anxiety, in not living up to God’s standards, in his worry about the churches, including the church at Corinth.

Then, in Chapter 12, as our text begins, Paul says, “I must go on boasting, though there is nothing to be gained by that” - for him and his benefit. As we’ll see, he is really boasting in the Lord and the Lord’s saving plan and work in Christ and not in himself. Paul says he knows of a man in Christ, who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven, though he does not know just how it happened, and he had glimpses of paradise and heard things he could not even speak about.

We don’t know for sure, but one Lutheran scholar writes, “The first heaven is that which we can see, up to the clouds. The second heaven is that of the planets and stars and the rest of the universe that is beyond. The third heaven is the dwelling place of God and the angels and the departed saints, the believers in glory - what Paul and Jesus and others call “paradise.”

As we read on, Paul is talking about himself as the one who received these special visions and revelations. If you remember, Paul (earlier called Saul) was strongly anti-Christian and a persecutor of Christians until the risen Lord Jesu appeared directly to him and turned his life around and brought him to faith. Paul had had some good training as a Jewish Pharisee, but he had not had the three years of personal training that Jesus had given the other disciples. There was so much to learn, especially about Jesus Himself and how He was at the center of God’s saving plan for the world, as God the Father’s only Son, sent to us all to be the Savior by living, dying, and rising again for us all.

These teachings and revelations from Jesus were to prepare Paul for his own public ministry, and some of them came 14 years earlier before Paul did His three great missionary journeys that we read about in the Book of Acts and other places. Through all of this, Paul was prepared and had certainty about what he was preaching and teaching, as the true Word of God, given him by Jesus Christ Himself.

Paul knew that he did not deserve any of these special visions. He calls himself, in other places, “the chief of sinners,” saved only by the grace and mercy of God, in Christ. Paul was still an ordinary human being, with his own weaknesses and struggles, as a forgiven sinner, too. So, he says, “To keep me from being conceited (proud in himself) because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.”

We don’t know what this “thorn” was. Many think it might have been some kind of physical problem that troubled Paul off and on through the years. In his earlier letter to the Galatians, Paul wrote (Galatians 4:13-14), “You know that it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the Gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel, a messenger of God, as Christ Jesus.” Some think the illness might have been something like malaria, for which there was no certain cure in the ancient world. Malaria could flare up in people and then go away but could come back to trouble them again and again later.

Paul also mentions in Galatians 6:11, “See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.” Paul dictated numbers of his letters, and others would write them down for him. He would write something on his own, too, sometimes with large letters, so that people knew the letter was from him - sort of like John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence in a very big way. Some people think that Paul may have had vision problems at times that caused him to write in this way.

Scholars record many other possibilities, but whatever the “thorn” was, Paul says in our text, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me, but He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’”

It reminds us of Jesus, too, praying in the Garden of Gethsemane three times that His Heavenly Father would take away the cup of suffering that was ahead for Him at the cross. Yet He also knew His Father’s plan and also prayed three times, “But not My will, but Yours, be done.” Jesus was the greatest, the perfect example of power made perfect in weakness, For through the agonizing suffering and death of the cross, in great weakness, Jesus, as our substitute, was the Power of God for salvation, as He paid the price for all sins, including our own, that we might be forgiven and accepted by God.

The cross looked only like a place of terrible suffering and sorrow and loss and defeat for Jesus. But it was the place of victory for us over sin and Satan and death through Jesus. Of course, the victory was only clearly evident in His resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven and returning to His throne to glory in heaven, where He is preparing a place for us, too, who trust in Him. This all started in this world with His birth as a tiny, very vulnerable baby in Bethlehem and a life of much suffering and trouble as a human man and, finally, what one commentator called “the throne of the cross.” So Paul, with his eyes only on Jesus, said in our text, “Therefore I will boast all the gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me… for when I am weak (and know it) then I am strong (in Christ alone)."

It is something to be learned by all through Christ and His Word and Work. Remember John the Baptist. He had a strong ministry, but he was only preparing the way for Christ. When Jesus’ ministry began at His baptism, John said, He (Jesus) must increase, and I must decrease” (John 3:30). For Jesus alone was “the Lamb of God Who would take away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

When Paul was brought to faith in Christ, he said, “We preach Christ crucified… Christ, the Power of God, and the Wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God (as interpreted by man) is wiser than men, and the weakness of God (in human eyes) is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:23-25).

And Paul said, “When I came to you, I did not come with lofty speech or wisdom. I preached Christ Jesus and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling… so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of man but in the power of God (and His Word) (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).

Again, Paul said, “What we proclaim are not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves simply as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, Who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:5-6).

“The face of Jesus Christ” - that is the message of God for us all. We do not trust in ourselves or in anyone else but in Christ, our Savior. When the Lord Jesus called Paul, He said that Paul “is a chosen instrument of Mine to carry My Name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of My Name” (Acts 9:15-16). The suffering was real, but it served important purposes for Paul and his ministry. And God’s grace was sufficient for Him.

As forgiven sinners in this sinful world, we, too, have faced and will face sufferings and troubles. But when we are weak, in this way, we are strong where we should be strong and are strong, in the Lord, leaning on Him.  And He can make us stronger yet, depending upon Him more, as He helps us through these times and as He finally leads us by faith to eternal life.

An early church leader, Chrysostom, wrote in the 300s AD, “How great is the advantage of affliction: for now indeed that we are in the enjoyment of peace (as Christians) we have become lazy and lax… When we were persecuted, we were more sober-minded and more earnest and more ready for church attendance and hearing the Word of God.” Isn’t that sometimes still true today?

The Lord helped Job and John the Baptist through times of great weakness to learn to say, “Even when I am weak, I am strong in the Lord. I trust in Him.”

The Lord helped Paul to say, in our text, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong in the Lord. I trust in Christ.”

And we can say, too: “When I am weak, I am still strong in my Savior, Jesus. I trust not in myself but in Him alone and in how He can and will bless me, now and forever. His grace is sufficient also for me.”

Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds safe, only where they are safe, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. (Philippians 4:7)