Sexagesima
2 Cor
11:19-12:9
2/20/22
There is no
NFL quarterback of any era who would want to get into a competition with Tom
Brady when it comes to comparing accomplishments. Brady is widely recognized as the “GOAT” –
the acronym for “greatest of all time.”
And while “greatest” is an adjective that is thrown around in sports so
easily today in a world that has no sense of history – in Brady’s case there is
no doubt about it.
Tom Brady
holds almost every major quarterback record such as passing yards, completions, touchdown passes, and games
started. He is the NFL leader in career
quarterback regular season wins, quarterback playoff wins, and Super Bowl MVP
awards. Brady holds the amazing record
for winning seven Super Bowls, and playing in ten of them.
Like Tom Brady, no one should have wanted to get into a
competition with St. Paul when it came to comparing oneself with his work and
suffering for the sake of Jesus Christ. And yet, people showed up in Corinth
who boasted about their work for Christ and invited just such a comparison.
We learn that men had arrived at Corinth bearing letters of
recommendation. They claimed to be
authoritative and important teachers. In
fact, Paul mocks them as the “super-apostles.”
However, there was no doubt in Paul’s mind about what these teachers
really were. He wrote at the beginning
of chapter eleven: “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his
cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere
and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims
another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit
from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the
one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.”
These men proclaimed false teaching,
and while they might appear to be pious, Paul was very direct in his evaluation
of them when he said: “For such men are false apostles, deceitful
workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder,
for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no
surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of
righteousness.”
The Greco-Roman world’s education
system was based on teaching rhetoric – the accepted rules for constructing and
delivering speeches. Paul granted that
this was not his strength. His education
has been in the Jewish setting that focused on Scripture and its
interpretation. But while the apostle
did not have the rhetorical skills that the world prized so highly, what he did
have was authoritative knowledge from God. And so just before our text he
writes: “Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these
super-apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in
knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all
things.”
Paul makes it clear in our text that
he was not one to boast. This was not the way of Christ. However, because of
what the false teachers were saying, the apostle saw that he had needed to shut
down their argument. He says in the
verses just before our text, “I repeat, let no one think me foolish. But
even if you do, accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast a
little. What I am saying with this boastful confidence, I say
not with the Lord's authority but as a fool. Since many boast
according to the flesh, I too will boast.”
Paul says in our text, that when it
comes to Jewish pedigree that he can match up with anyone. Then he adds, “Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one--I
am talking like a madman--with far greater labors, far more
imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.” This kind of boasting is not what Paul wants
to do. But has been left no choice, and
so in our text he provides an incredible list of the hardships he endured as a
faithful apostle of Jesus Christ: again and again he has risked his life and
suffered in order to proclaim the Gospel.
In the midst of the list about beatings, shipwrecks, and
danger, Paul introduces a theme with which he will culminate our text. He says, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my
weakness.” As we will see, Paul says
that instead he will boast of weaknesses, because to boast of these is to point
to the presence of the power of Christ in his life.
In the second half of our text, Paul
goes on to talk about visions and revelations of the Lord. He focuses on one experience in particular
that had happened fourteen years ago in which he had been caught up into
paradise – what he describes as the “third heaven” – where he had he heard
things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.
Then the apostle reveals, “So to
keep me from becoming conceited 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 do not know what this “thorn
in the flesh was.” There has been much speculation, but there is no way of
knowing.
What is clear is that this was a great
hardship and burden for Paul. The
apostle says that “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it
should leave me.” But the Lord’s answer was not to take it away. Instead he told Paul: “My grace is sufficient
for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” And then Paul returns
to the thought we heard earlier as he says: “Therefore I will boast all
the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon
me.” And he goes on to add in the verse just after 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.”
Paul says that he will boast in his weakness. However, we don’t like to experience
weakness. We don’t want to experience weaknesses,
insults, hardships, and calamities, and we certainly find it difficult to be
content in the midst of them.
Why can the apostle Paul speak this
way? He can because of the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Earlier in
this letter the apostle writes, “For the love of Christ controls us,
because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all
have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer
live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”
Paul says that one died for all, therefore all have died. By this death God has reconciled us to
himself, because through the death of Jesus God has judged our sin. The apostle adds, “For our sake he made him to be sin who
knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Christ died to remove the sin that cut us off from God.
Because of Christ, we have been reconciled to God. Yet Christ’s saving work – his work freeing
us from sin – could not stop in death.
As we just heard, Paul says that for our sake Christ died and was raised.
When the Spirit of God raised Jesus from the dead God
demonstrated that he had been at work in the midst of weakness. He had been at
work in the midst of the suffering, shame, and humiliation of the cross. And now the resurrection life of Jesus is at
work in us through the Spirit. Paul says
in this letter, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The
old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
As those who have received the washing of regeneration
and renewal of the Holy Spirit in baptism, this living power is at work in
us. It is God’s power – the power of the
Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead.
It is Christ the risen Lord sustaining us through his Spirit. In the midst of our weakness, it is the life
of Christ given to us by the Spirit that manifests itself.
Paul
expressed this very strongly earlier in this letter when we spoke about his
ministry and of those with him like Timothy as he wrote: “But we have this
treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs
to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck
down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of
Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”
Paul wanted to be freed of the thorn in the flesh. Of course he
did! No one chooses suffering and
difficulties. But the Lord’s answer to
him was, “My
grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” In
our weakness we find that we must to rely on God, and so God’s power reaches it
consummation and goal. God’s power is
the power of the resurrection of Jesus.
It the life that has begun in Christ and now is shared with us by the
Spirit. It is the life that will find
its final outcome when Jesus raises our bodies from the dead on the Last Day,
and transforms them to be like him.
Just after our text Paul adds: “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 our weakness we trust in the strength of God revealed in Jesus
Christ’s resurrection.
The apostle
said something very similar to the Philippians when he wrote, “I know how to be
brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have
learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.”
This is followed by the famous verse in Philippians 4:13 which is often
translated as, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” This very smooth translation gives the false
impression that the apostle is saying God’s strengthening power enables us to
do anything. Instead, a more accurate
translation is, “I have strength with respect to all things in the One
who strengthens me.” The “all things” are the plenty and hunger,
abundance and need that Paul has just mentioned. The apostle says that
through God who strengthens him, he has the ability to live with all the things
that occur in life.
The Lord told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my
power is made perfect in weakness.”
Paul’s conclusion drawn from this is, “Therefore I will
boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ
may rest upon me. 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.”
The apostle’s inspired words teach us that Jesus Christ the
risen Lord is the source of power and strength for our lives. The One who
became sin for us to reconcile us to God died on the cross. But on the third day, God raised him from the
dead by the work of the Spirit. The Holy
Spirit – the Spirit of Christ – is the resurrection power at work in us. In the midst of weaknesses, hardships, and
challenges we find that we do not have the strength to cope. Instead, like
Paul, we rely and trust on the power of God – the power of Christ – present in
our life through the Spirit.
If we are to live in this way, then we must focus our lives on
those ways – those means – by which the Spirit of Christ comes to us. We must
make God’s Word a center piece of our life. We need to be reading Scripture
during the week, for the Spirit who inspired those words uses them as the means
by which he gives us the strength that can only find in Christ. We need to be dwelling in faith on our
baptism as we think about the promises God has attached to water and the
Word. And of course, we need to be
coming to the Divine Service to receive the word of absolution; to hear God’s
Word proclaimed to us; and especially, to receive the true body and blood of
Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar which is food for the new man.
“My
grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
The weakness of our life is where we find God at work to give us power and
strength. We know this is true because
God has given us forgiveness in the death of Jesus Christ. We know this is true
because God raised Jesus from the dead, and the Spirit who did that is now at
work in you the baptized child of God. The resurrection life of Jesus is at
work in you now to give you power and strength in the midst of weakness. And our
Lord will destroy all of your weakness when he raises you up on the Last Day.
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