Boasting in Weakness | 2 Corinthians 11:16-33 | 07/12/26

Well, we're in 2 Corinthiansap 11:16,

and I want to ask the question, um, what

does success look like in your life? If

you to think about what does success

look like? What would you come to mind?

I don't know if many of us have like a

list of things that would make our life

successful, but we probably have things

playing in the background of our mind.

Things like a good job and a nice home.

Uh, maybe success is being competent in

most areas of your life. Maybe there's

people who look up to you. Maybe enough

money in your retirement account. Kids

who excel. A truck that gets noticed.

What does success look like? Right? And

don't get me wrong, God doesn't hate

competency in trucks, right? That's not

like God's not looking down from like, I

hate when people are competent, right?

But I think how we think about success

often gets framed in terms of material

categories

and the view others have on us. But I

want to ask the question, you know where

I'm going. Is it something else?

Is it something else? Many of us

want others to think that our lives are

worthy

or we view success as reaching a place

where things are comfortable or we are

strong.

I've been rereading uh The Great Gatsby

uh freshman English class book, right?

But rereading it recently. Uh English

teachers, I see you. Okay. I I I feel

you. Um, but there are people who give

off this image of success, but the

closer you get to them, the more you

realize that it's just a veneer. It's

just a shell or an appearance to cover

up their weakness. And that story more

than any shows that. I mean, I I find

myself reading the book and I hate every

character. Like, everyone's shallow.

Everyone's giving out this picture of of

power and success and wealth. And it

follows the story in the 1920s where

this narrator is enamored with this

mysterious neighbor of his, Jay Gatsby,

who threw these lavish parties had

tremendous wealth. He claimed to be a

war hero, Oxford scholar, and he came

from old money, but he was this

confident, popular, powerful figure. But

as narrator gets closer and closer in

the story, you just see this veneer of

success around him that starts to wear

off. He's able to find out who he really

was. was a small town farm kid from

North Dakota named James Gats. He was

poor and ambitious. He got wealthy

through bootleg and alcohol

all to allure a girl he fell in love

with but couldn't have.

And he presents this image of success,

this image of strength, but inside it

was all a sham. It was all hollow.

Like I have a hard time reading that

book because all the characters feel

that way. They're all shallow, image

obsessed. But I I think that's the point

of the book.

And maybe there's a little bit of that

in all of us or at least the pressure.

We see similar things today 100 years

later. Not necessarily at the same

scale, but there's a temptation to have

this image of success, this image of

strength that we show to others.

Now, can your image of success, whatever

success is in your life, can that image

be mapped on to any character in the

Bible?

Does that follow any biblical character?

Like, does your image for success, does

it look like anyone we read in

scripture? Does it look like Jeremiah

who was faithful to God as a prophet

even though nobody listened to him?

Is it like Abraham who was stretched in

his trust of God even as he struggled

with fear and taking action into his own

hands? is success like Ruth who lost her

family and security and lived the life

of a beggar only to come to find a

deeper understanding of God's steadfast

love

is like Jesus the man of stars the king

who suffered and died in our place

I say this

because it's important for us to know

that a successful Christian life is

actually more about our weakness and

need for Christ

than the image of our strength.

And so I want to ask the question, what

if your genuine weakness, your real

weakness, shows the gospel more than

your pretend strength?

What if your real weakness is what God

uses to show the gospel more than our

pretend strength? In our text this

morning, Paul responded to the

accusations of the ones he sarcastically

called the super apostles. And his point

was this. Our genuine weakness

demonstrates the gospel.

Our suffering and need highlight the

work of Christ, the gospel, more than

any amount of pretend strength or

worldly success could. And that's not to

say that Christians who are successful

or wealthy are doing it wrong.

It's rather to say the goal of the

Christian life isn't to get to a place

where we pretend we don't need Jesus.

Success in the Christian life looks a

lot like depending on God. And so I want

to explore what that pretend strength

looked like in the culture of Corinth.

Talk through Paul and our real weakness

and then end by celebrating talking

about how we boast in our weakness. What

Paul does in this text. How can we boast

in our weakness? And so let's first look

at pretend strength. 2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 11:16

11:16. We'll read out of verse 21. Join

me in reading the text here. It says, "I

repeat, let no one think me foolish,

but even if if you do, accept me as a

fool, so that I too may boast a little.

What I'm saying with this boastful

confidence, I say, not as the Lord

would, but as a fool. Since many boast

according to the flesh, I too will

boast. For you gladly bear with fools,

being wise yourself.

For you bear it with if someone makes

slaves of you or devours you or takes

advantage of you or puts on heirs or

strikes you in the face. To my shame I

must say we were too weak for that.

Whatever anyone else dares to boast of,

I am speaking as a fool. I dare to boast

of that.

Uh one Bible commentator said, "This

section of the Bible drips with sarcasm,

and I'm here for it. I want you to know

I am ready this morning.

I've arrived.

Uh, if you're new with us, I could have

a little bit of a cutting humor. I've

worked on it a lot the last 13 years.

And I like to think of it as snark or

pointing out irony because sarcasm is

meant to demean somebody.

And I think Paul actually is being

sarcastic here. I think he actually

wants to erode and demean the fake

apostles who are destroying the church.

Um Paul's goal is to expose the motives

of the super apostles. The fact that he

called them that shows his sarcasm,

these super apostles. And Paul pokes fun

of their boasting and accusation that

Paul was a fool. And Paul takes that and

runs with it in the text here. He's

like, "If you think me a fool, let me be

the fool for you here." He says, "If I'm

a fool, let me boast like a fool would."

And then he boasts about all the things

that no one in this world would have

boasted about. We'll get to that in the

next section here. But looking at verse

19, he said this. Since you have the

habit of listening to fools, give me a

shot.

He also threw in a parting shot of being

wise yourself.

This is like peak sarcasm.

And so Paul leaned into what the fake

apostles accused him of, foolishness.

He took this common rhetorical device,

this boasting speech, and he flipped it

on its head. And it may sound crazy to

us, but in the Greor Roman world, there

was a common style of speech that would

celebrate your accomplishments, often

with lists of numbers attached to them.

You would celebrate your exploits, your

confidence. And part of this was

centered on your worth.

Your worth being recognized by other

people.

For example, Augustus declared what was

called in his resist this. Twice I

received triumphal ovations. Three times

I received cruel triumphs. 20 times and

one that did I see receive the

appellation of imperator.

I guess humble people don't get noticed.

And so he wants to be noticed with this

boasting speech.

And so Paul does not like this method of

persuasion

but wrote in verse 16 he says let me

boast a little if that's what you want

to hear. basically thought this was

idiocy but he used this method of

communication to draw the Corinthians in

and then subvert this speech to subvert

this thing he twists it for something

else

and all this was verse 18 based on

boasting on worldly earthly standards

boasting according to the flesh and so

his twist that he boasts in what draws

him to Christ he boasts in his weakness

last week uh pastor Jason talked about

these fake apostles and they're

shephering selfishly, their selfish

shephering. If you're not familiar with

the term shephering, it's a uh word we

use a lot in the church here. Talk about

how we pastor. It includes prayer and

disciplehip, crisis care, connecting

people to serving and community. It's

basically caring for souls in the

church. We we use that term shephering a

lot. And the fake apostles were doing

that in such a way where they were

benefiting themselves.

And so we asked the question last week

the or said the easiest way to spot a

fraud is to ask are they here to serve

or to be served.

And at times people have come here

saying they have a message or they

proclaim this response right for us. And

he said first thing you can do is come

and clean some toilets. First thing you

could do is is is humble yourself. Do

the thing that no one notices. And I

don't want to like puff Jason up here

but when I came on staff 13 years ago he

was like the guy doing all the table

setup outside.

um no one noticed, no one knew it was

all the behind the scenes work. And I'm

like, hey, like why are you doing that?

Like what's up with that? And his

response, I just want the pastors to be

able to serve, be able to focus on

people. And so I saw that in Jason 13

years ago. Also, being a pastor and

dealing with the bathroom crisis is a

real thing.

I think we've all done that. So,

but these fake apostles were shephering

selfishly.

And Paul wants us to understand that

they used people to elevate their image,

their their display of strength and

success.

Rather than serving the church, they

projected this image of strength through

entertaining speech or financial success

and abuse of power. And what was their

goal? Verse 20, Paul lays it out clear.

This was their goal. For you bear it

with someone makes slaves of you or

devours you or takes advantage of you or

puts on heirs or strikes you in the

face. They had five goals. Sarcastically

points out the foolishness of the

Corinthians to tolerate this.

Their goal was to enslave them.

Following the teaching of these false

apostles took away their freedom and

kept them stuck in sin.

Jason mentioned how the false apostles

just told them what they wanted to hear

and would not challenge them to take up

their cross and follow Christ. They were

stuck in their sin.

Second goal they have is to devour them.

This literally speaks of ravenous

eating.

Same word used in the prodigal son story

in Luke 15 of the younger brother who

took his inheritance early and wasted it

on reckless living.

It was devoured.

Their third goal was to take advantage

of them. The idea here is stealing. They

took whatever they could from the

Corinthians.

Next, they put on heirs. They they

lifted themselves up. They exalted

themselves. They used the Corinthians to

make them seem more successful.

And lastly, they were striking them in

the face. This was a slap in the face.

The idea here is humiliation.

In the Jewish world at the time, to be

struck in the face was one of the most

humiliating things that could happen to

you. This happened to Jesus when he was

arrested before he was crucified. And

Paul did not know this at the time,

but when he would be arrested later on,

it would happen to him by the Jewish

leaders.

And so Paul sarcastically again said in

verse 21, "We were too weak to treat you

that way.

We were too weak to enslave you and

devour you, take advantage of you, put

on heirs, too weak to strike you in the

face. I guess we're weak leaders because

we don't treat you like that. We don't

treat you shamefully.

The false apostles will boast about how

they didn't suffer like Paul, how they

were better speakers, better trained,

had a bigger following. They were

wealthy, influential, they were more

competent than Paul.

But the primary characteristic of the

false apostles was that selfish

shephering using the people of God to

build an image of success and strength.

But it was all a facade.

This kind of power could be really

deceiving for us. It could be really

deceiving for us because it projects an

image that many of us desire deep down.

No one likes to suffer. No one wants to

feel like their life is unworthy.

The humbled don't get noticed.

And yet we also know that this kind of

life is hollow. It's inherently selfish.

It's not Christlike.

And so Paul did something incredibly

uncomfortable here.

He tried to poke holes in their veneer

of strength, their pretend success. He

took up their style of speaking, their

style of boasting, but rather than

boasting in his flesh, boasting in his

accomplishments, he boasted in his

suffering and the genuine power of his

real weakness.

Second thing we see this morning is the

demonstration of Paul's genuine

weakness. Look at verse 22.

He begins his speech. Are they Hebrews?

So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I.

Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I.

Are they servants of Christ? I am a

better one.

I'm talking like a mad man with far

greater labors, far more imprisonments,

with countless beatings, and often near

death.

We'll pause there for a second.

What Paul's opponents saw as an unworthy

leader,

Paul saw as the very things that

qualified him to lead.

What Paul's opponents saw as unworthy of

a leader, suffering and hardship and

weakness, Paul saw those things as being

the qualification for leadership.

vulnerability, weakness, walking with a

limp because you've suffered and you're

hurt,

which can lead to deeper trust in God,

deeper humility, a demonstration of the

gospel we preach. Rather than pretending

to wear a cape, being a superhero, Paul

openly boasted in his real weakness.

And so, he started off the way they'd

expect with his credentials. Verse 22,

am I a Hebrew? Yes. An Israelite? Yes.

An offspring of Abraham? Yes. a servant

of Christ, a better one than you.

He pulled them in with his boasting like

the false apostles did. But then he gave

it a twist. If you think I'm foolish,

let me be a madman. Let me tell you what

qualifies a servant of Christ. Unlike

these apostles who pretend to be

successful and strong. And so Paul saw

these things as real hardships, not

strengths, as real weaknesses.

This list was not Paul doing the whole

let me tell you my strengths by telling

you my weaknesses. I love too much. I

work too hard. He's not doing that.

He's giving them his Jesus resume. The

very way he was called to follow Christ

in his ministry. He tells them about his

trials, his dangers, and his human

weaknesses.

First, let me tell you about my trials.

Verse 23.

far greater labors, far more

imprisonment

with countless beatings, often near

death. And here's where he gets into the

resist like Augustus here starts listing

off numbers. Five times I received at

the hands of the Jews. 40 lashes less

one. Three times I was beaten with rods.

Once I was stoned, three times I was

shipwrecked. A night and a day I was a

drift at sea. You could almost hear his

like mock boasting of these numbers.

Labors. His job was work.

Often manual labor to pay for his

ability to pastor and travel and serve

the churches. In Corenth, manual labor

is seen as the work of a slave. And

maybe when our AI overlords take over

and we all are working the minds to

build more robots,

we will know what this is like. But the

Bible views manual labor

in a very different way than the ancient

world did.

The Bible views manual labor creating,

crafting as dignified work. God's

pictured in the Old Testament as a

gardener. Jesus had the life of

carpenter.

Working hard is a good thing, but to the

Corinthians, it was a sign of slave

work, slaves labor.

Next, imprisonment, which was a public

shame. Why was Paul imprisoned, though?

He's imprisoned for the gospel.

And then, countless beatings, often near

death. This where Paul gets into the

specifics of his suffering. And notice

that same mock boasting of triumph,

right? Five times received 40 lashes

minus one.

This was punishment

from the Jews for bearing false witness

in the Old Testament.

They thought Paul was preaching heresy

in preaching Jesus. According to Jewish

sources at the time, they were to be

delivered by the priest with all his

might

using a strap that was used on an ox. 13

blows delivered to the chest. 26 blows

delivered to the back minus one so that

they may not unintentionally violate the

law.

Not to be too gross with this often

caused people's like bowels to be

relieved and people often died.

This was the most severe beating that

was permitted in the Old Testament law.

Matthew 10:17, Jesus told his followers

Matthew 10:17

that this would happen to them.

It could be that Paul actually

participated in beating Christians in

such a way before he became a Christian

himself being a persecutor of the

church.

Five times 40 lashes minus one. Three

times beaten with rods. This was Rome's

form of capital corporal punishment.

Bundles of elm or birch rods normally

not allowed to be done to a Roman

citizen. But there are times in the book

of Acts where Paul even though he's

Roman citizen endured

these beatings

instead of claiming his citizenship

which seems crazy.

Once he was stoned with rocks as

happened in Acts 14 meant to be capital

punishment where he would have died but

the Lord preserved him. He gets up and

walks back into the city and he preaches

the gospel.

Three times shipwrecked. There's a

fourth one in the book of Acts. This was

written before that happened. the one

that we know about at the end of the

book of Acts. But three times

shipwrecked, a drift at sea, night and

day. Often travel by sea was not safe.

Likely Paul felt that likely Paul felt

that reality being a drift in the ocean

for a night and day. This makes a total

of 12 times that Paul was close to death

to serve Christ in the church. This is

his Jesus resume. As Jesus was a

suffering servant, so Paul was going to

suffer. So Paul would follow Christ in

that way.

Second, he says, "Let me tell you about

my dangers. I told you my trials. Let me

tell you about my dangers." Verse 26.

On frequent journeys in danger from

rivers, danger from robbers, danger from

my own people, danger from Gentiles,

danger from the city, danger in the

wilderness, danger at sea, danger from

false brothers.

He ends with that one on purpose.

Eight dangers. rivers, robbers, his own

people, the Gentiles, the city, the

wilderness, the sea, and strategically

placed at the end false brothers. The

problem in Corinth, Paul couldn't hire a

travel agent. He couldn't hire private

security. Travel in the ancient world

was not safe. Poverty in the countryside

led many people to become robbers.

Even with all the peace that Rome

brought, there were still people out

there who were seeking to harm others.

But the worst of it all, what Paul

called at the at the end were the false

brothers. These leaders who pretended to

be Christians to abuse and take

advantage of the Corinthian church. All

the other dangers from at the outside.

This was a danger from the inside.

The local church in danger of being

compromised by false teaching, being led

astray from following Christ.

Trials and hardships, dangers. And the

third category he gives us here is just

his general human weakness. Verse 27.

In toil and hardship, through many a

sleepless night, in hunger and thirst,

often without food, in cold and

exposure, and apart from all other

things, there is a daily pressure on me

of my anxiety for all the churches.

Who is weak and I am not weak? who is

made to fall and I am not indignant.

These were all the ways where Paul felt

his limited humanity and was unable to

put on this image of strength. He says

toil and hardship. Paul experienced

fatigue in his work. Our bodies cannot

keep going at a high pace without

feeling fatigue. There will become a

limit. Your body will shut down with

sickness or stress or something else

when you push yourself too hard. There

is a governor to your ability to work

hard and that's fatigue.

Christian ministry according to Paul is

hard work. It's exhausting. Second,

sleepless nights. The irony of sleep is

that when you need it most, you often

can't get it.

This could be related to hard work or

just running out of time or to the

anxiety he references later on in verse

28.

I have experienced seasons of insomnia

around a year ago. It started with a few

stressful ministry days and I was unable

in my own strength to turn the worry off

in my brain. So, I had a few bad nights

of sleep, a few, you know, almost

stretching out to a week where I could

not fall asleep. And then what kicks in

is sleep anxiety.

You start to think around 9:00 p.m.,

will this be the night where I finally

get some sleep? And then you start to

think and think and think, okay, what do

I need to do to fall asleep right now?

And each sub night subsequently I

worried about whether I'd sleep that

night and this lasted for months.

Psalm 127:2 God gives his beloved sleep.

Psalms 127:2

It's a gift from God, but it can be hard

to access in our human weakness at

times.

But a blessing is that we're designed to

shut off from the world for a third of

our day to trust in the Lord.

Next, hunger and thirst.

times of travel where food and water

were not readily available.

Some of us have experienced hunger in a

real sense. Most of us have not because

we're more prepared in our society today

than at most times in human history.

But still, we're designed by God to need

to be replenished by the natural means

of good nutrition and water.

Fourth, often without food, he tells us

it's probably a reference to fasting.

Intentionally going without food for a

spiritual purpose to depend on God to

learn that man does not live by bread

alone.

Fifth, cold and exposure. Paul did not

minister in climate controlled

environments all the time.

He experienced the highs and lows of

temperature. He experienced the fatigue,

the exhaustion, the chills.

Then lastly, the sixth thing he called

out was his anxiety.

His daily pressure and anxiety for all

the churches.

Paul was constantly concerned with the

well-being of God's people.

Paul carried an emotional weight for the

churches he ministered to.

Now,

anxiety is a touchy thing to talk about

a bit,

but it exists for Paul

because of his care.

It existed for Paul because of his love

for people and for God.

God has designed us to care about other

people and that can often lead to a high

level of anxiety and stress. And this is

the burden he'd been carrying with the

Corinthians, wondering if they would

embrace the gospel, if they would repent

of their sin, if they would follow

Christ, or they would get caught up with

these false teachers.

He told them earlier that his goal was

to present them to God holy.

So some anxiety can be overtly sinful

as we allow thoughts to ruminate in our

minds. As we catastrophize

real challenges, we make them out to be

the worst case scenario. As we give into

fear and lack of trust for God, some

anxiety can be sinful in that way,

as we give into worry.

But other times,

challenges hit us as stress and

pressure.

And it's what we do with that that can

be holy or sinful.

What we do with the stress and pressure

can be either holy or sinful. It can

either be something we bring to the Lord

to allow our weakness to draw us close

to him

or we can respond with fear and allow

anxiety to take control.

So to summarize Paul's hardships and

weaknesses here, travel in the ancient

world, rural and urban, supporting

himself through his tentmaking trade,

overseeing new church plants, the strain

of cross-cultural ministry, evangelism,

conflict, debating church opponents, not

to mention specific persecution from

Jewish and Roman authorities. All this

would have been immensely trying,

immensely difficult. This man we

consider to be so strong. Verse 29, what

did he confess?

Who is weak and I am not weak?

Who is weak and I am not weak? I am

weak, he confesses.

And that he had a burning hot anger

that the Corinthians are being led into

sin by these selfish shepherds.

He was not indifferent to their

suffering. It made him angry.

So

we all have real human weakness.

We all suffer.

What do we do with that?

Paul boasts in his suffering. And he

tells us if we have to boast, we should

boast in our weakness.

our genuine weakness

shows the gospel more than our pretend

strength. And so he ends there by by

encouraging us to boast in our weakness.

And he gives us an image

of his own weakness

that is placed curiously in the text.

Here

we saw the pretend strength. We saw his

genuine weakness. Third thing, how do we

boast in our weakness? Look at verse 30.

If I must boast, I will boast of the

things that show my weakness.

The God and father of the Lord Jesus,

who is blessed forever, knows that I'm

not lying. At Damascus, the governor

under King Artus was guarding the city

of Damascus in order to seize me. But I

was let down a basket through a window

in the wall and escaped his hands. Now,

if I was writing this,

why do you laugh, G? Uh, if I was

writing this, I would put that in my

list of like hardships, like the five

times the the, you know, whatever. I'd

be like, and the one time I had to

escape under the cover of darkness,

being let down by a wall. But, but Paul

takes it out of that list and puts it

here. Like, he gives us some conclusion

statements. If I must boast, I'll boast

my weakness. And he says also, the God

and father of our Lord Jesus, who's

blessed forever knows that I'm not

lying. That sounds like a that sounds

like a concluding sentence there. He's

like, let me throw one more in for you.

Now, looking around this room, I know

the level of suffering that many of us

have experienced either for following

Christ or just from the hardships of

living in a world marked by sin. You

need to understand your suffering, your

human limitations, even your weakness,

like your lack of strength, your lack of

being able to do it all on your own,

your lack of competency in a certain

area. It's not a liability

or something you have to hide from God

and God's people.

It's not a liability.

According to Paul here, it's the very

thing God uses to display the gospel.

The very thing that God uses to show us

his strength.

And so what does Paul want us to do

that? He wants us to boast about our

weaknesses. We boast what makes us weak

rather than pretending to have it all

together. And so Paul gives us this

image here,

the statement of weakness, the story of

weakness. And I've been thinking about

like why is it here?

Paul became a Christian on the road to

Damascus. He was a persecutor of the

church. Jesus showed up in blazing

light, bright light, confronted Paul

about his persecution. Why are you

persecuting me?

Paul was blinded for three days. He had

his sight restored in Damascus at the

hands of a disciple of Jesus named

Ananas.

And God called Ananas to courage. Like

could you imagine

Ananas? You need to go to this person

that you're afraid of who's come here to

persecute you, to walk you up for your

faith, and trust me, just put your hands

on him and he'll receive his sight and

become a Christian. You're like,

"Okay, God, I can do this.

I think he did that because that brought

Paul into Christian community. Like

Ananas and others brought Paul into

Christian community. Paul became a

Christian. He was baptized started to

preach Jesus.

So much that people were amazed. This

guy who persecuted the church now is now

preaching Jesus. But the Jews of

Damascus were outraged and plotted to

kill him. And so Paul escaped in the

most embarrassing way possible in the

ancient world. He was let down in a

basket cover of nights

over a city wall.

In the ancient world,

the most challenging combat was trying

to breach a city wall.

Remember in chapter 10, Paul talked

about tearing down arguments, tearing

down these walls of the false teachers.

He used siege language there. And he

brings that seed siege language back

here.

In this type of combat, defenders would

gather at the city wall and they would

hurl projectiles, boiling water, bowlers

down on people. It took a huge number of

people to breach a city wall. In fact,

when Jerusalem rebelled in AD70 against

Rome, it took 70,000 soldiers from the

Roman army to breach and conquer the

walls of Jerusalem

and six months of time.

But to get this, the one who breached

the wall, the one who climbed the wall,

the one who soared up the wall and

planted the flag

of your army,

he was given a reward.

A reward called the Corona Morales, the

mural crown, the wall crown. If you

imagine like European crowns now, they

have kind of those little like turrets

on them. They're modeled after this

crown.

It look like the city wall. You'd be

exalted for conquering the wall. this

gold headband placed on your head.

And what did Paul do?

Instead of scaling the wall and

defeating his enemies,

he escaped like a fugitive

from a city at night in the most

embarrassing mode of transportation

possible. A position of weakness, being

lowered down in the cover of dark in a

basket, running away from his enemies.

This is the point. Paul basically made

fun of himself and his weakness here,

boasting at it. Instead of going up the

wall and killing his enemies, he was let

down the wall in a basket to flee from

them.

Church, the gospel is about going low.

It's about not exalting yourself, but

humbling yourself.

That God exalts those who are not

ashamed of their weakness and need. 1

Peter 5 tells us that God opposes the

proud. He gives grace to the humble. And

this journey that Paul took was an image

of the gospel. What did Paul tell us in

Philippians 2? That Christ Jesus did not

count equality with God as a thing to be

grasped, but he humbled himself. He

embraced the life of human weakness. He

took on suffering. He took on death so

we could have life. Jesus went to the

cross to die for our sins to provide a

path to be restored to God. And it

required embracing a life of weakness.

And what happened? Philippians chi by

humbling himself by scaling down the

wall. What happened to Jesus? He was

exalted.

He was exalted. He was lifted up.

Declare the King of Kings, the Lord of

Lords. Jesus descended

in order to receive the crown.

Instead of scaling the wall to receive

the crown, he descended to receive the

crown. He took on a life of weakness and

suffering. And so, look, you don't have

to be afraid that one day God's going to

find out your weakness. He already

knows.

God already knows. And that's why he

sent his son. We sang earlier in the

song Jesus strong and kind. He said, "If

I am weak, I should come to him because

no one else can be my strength. I should

come to him." We can confess our real

need for God.

For some of you, that might begin your

relationship with the Lord.

You confess your real sin, your real

need. You tell him exactly what's going

on in your heart, your life. You repent.

You turn from the sin. You ask for God

to forgive you. You humble yourself

before him. You receive forgiveness. You

receive new life.

For others who already follow Christ, it

may be confessing your real need for

God, which leads to greater intimacy

with God,

and it takes the burden off of your

shoulders.

Theologian Kelly Kappic, he wrote this.

He said, 'There are no creatures who are

not by their very nature dependent

beings.

He made that point that in God's

providence, he designed all of us to

need him.

What if your depression, what if your

season of cancer, what if your spouse

leaving you 10 years ago? What if your

family rejecting you when you started to

follow Christ? What if your insomnia

or your seasons of fatigue or

exhaustion? What if your fight against

anxiety? What if the feeling of I just

don't have the strength?

What if those things that highlight your

weakness

can be something that God uses to draw

you to actually needing him?

You likely heard the phrase before that

Christianity is a crutch for the weak.

Like it's used derogatorily, poratively.

It's used to be mean, right?

Christianity is a crutch for the weak.

And I can't agree more.

It's just some of us know that we're

weak and others pretend that we're not.

[snorts]

Some of us are just living in denial.

And if you're a Christian, you don't

walk with a limp. You don't like have

some suffering in your life. If you

don't have some real humility and

vulnerability,

if you're a leader who has no awareness

of your weakness and vulnerability,

I don't know if I could trust you.

According to what Paul taught here,

because I imagine the gospel they preach

is not real to them and the gospel they

preach is not the real gospel.

I want to leave us with two challenges

this morning here. Two ways to respond.

First, I want you to know your suffering

and hardship is not a sign that God is

done with you.

He was not done with Jesus when he

suffered. He was not done with Paul in

these hardships. Sometimes God allows

things to reveal our weakness to humble

us to draw near to him. And so, if

you're in a season of hurting right now

and you're tempted to think that God has

done, can I challenge you?

It will take courage and trust. Can I

challenge you to step closer to God

instead of further from God?

Can I challenge you to pray to be in the

word

to get into community in the church?

The natural thing for us is to want to

drift in seasons of suffering. And it

takes courage and trust to step closer.

Can I challenge you to step closer?

And related to that, the second

challenge here is can you be real with

people?

Can you be real with people?

Have you been real with other people

about areas of weakness and

vulnerability and struggle? Not as

giving them a simple view of it, but

real honesty about weakness and

vulnerability. Now, you don't have to be

deep with everybody,

but you should be deep with somebody.

And look,

it isn't always on others to ask or pry

into your life.

It's on us to be real.

It's hard. It requires trust. It's

vulnerable. Yes, it can be used against

you.

But by doing so, we stop pretending to

be strong for a moment.

Uh we've gone through some messy seasons

at the church. Um every church does.

This is not a foolproof way of

preventing that.

But it can sure help if you invite

people who love you to know who you

really are and what's actually going on

in your life. And many of us can wait

around for people to ask or we can

suffer in silence because we don't want

to let people know we're hurting.

It's uncomfortable to have people see

our weakness.

But God grows us through things that are

uncomfortable.

And the church is a place where it

should be safe to actually need God.

Relationships say superficial when

everyone's trying to be their best.

When we one up each other or show

strength to come across as having made

it.

But if your life was completely free of

suffering, hardship, and weakness, would

you even need him? Would you even need

God? We've been designed by God to

depend on him. designed by God to show

our weakness, to be weak, to be people

in need and the gospel is demonstrated

through that. Let me pray for us and we

ask the Lord to work in our hearts and

lives to help us to take the bold step

of faith to be more vulnerable

to allow our weakness to draw ourselves

to him.