SERVICES: SATURDAY 6PM | SUNDAY 9AM & 10:45AM. 

We Livestream at www.FaithFellowshipWeb.com/livestream, through the FFC App, and YouTube.

Boasting in Weakness

Boasting in Weakness

Words of Faith 12-21-17

Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoy © 2017

Jeff.Hoy@faithfellowshipweb.com

Faith Fellowship Church - Melbourne, FL

<>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <><

 

2 Corinthians 11

   [30] If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. [31] The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying. [32] In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. [33] But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.

 

       In our humanness, we don't like to be revealed or discovered as weak. Our flesh is self-protective and we are taught to "show no weakness.” Yet Paul reveals increasingly that it is only in our weakness that Jesus is needed, evident and glorified.

     Paul had taken the standards of the Corinthians and false apostles and turned them upside down. His catalog of sufferings could hardly have been what they expected to read. He boasted not in his power but in his weakness. Yet to Paul this was "boasting," not a contrived or ironical account.

     Paul's real boast was that his life was like that of Christ. Jesus had been "a Man of sorrows and familiar with suffering,” and so had Paul. As Jesus "took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows" so also, in a different sense, had Paul. Paul's boast was that he was like the suffering Servant. It was certainly a grand claim though hardly perceived as such by false apostles and worldly Corinthian believers.

     Any one of the severe sufferings Paul had described in the preceding verses might kill an average person. But Paul, one man, endured them all, not because he was so strong, but because Christ was so strong.

     Paul finally mentioned his escape from Damascus almost as postscript to the listing of his sufferings. This harrowing event occurred early in his life as a Christian (Acts 9:19) but he saw it as a typical experience in his work as an apostle. It epitomized the transformation that had taken place in his relationship with God, and sharply contrasted his state with that of the false apostles.

     Like the false apostles, as "Saul" he carried commendatory letters from Jerusalem to Damascus, but when he was en route God struck him down and he encountered the risen Christ. He had left for Damascus with great human authority and zeal; he departed abjectly conscious of his own weakness. He was hunted by Jew and Gentile alike, but he was delivered by God through the agency of fellow Christians. His exit, by being lowered in a basket, was not an entrance that typified the apostolic life. How different was Paul from these false apostles, who were really more like the unconverted Saul!

     What do we gain from this?

     When we give testimony, we are to be careful of boasting. We must always remember that we are boasting only in the Lord. "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends” (10:17-18).

       Now, Paul adds, "If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” The great display in our lives is never how much we have done or will do for God-- it is how weak we are and great God is and how much He has done for us.

       In most cultures showing weakness is a bad thing; in the Culture of the Kingdom of God showing weakness is the central thing.

 

       Heavenly Father, make your power complete in my weakness. Give me the words so that I may boast in You and the wonder of Your grace and mercy. In Jesus' Name.