Perfected in weakness
Notes
Transcript
God’s power is made perfect in weakness. It’s the most revolutionary, influential and disturbing idea ever. So says the historian Tom Holland. Weakness, rather than something shameful, is the very place where God goes.
But let’s face it, weakness sucks. Who wants to be weak? Who would choose to be weak. Weakness makes everything in life harder.
One of my academic mentors, Louise Gosbel was principal of Mary Andrews College in Sydney. That is until her health completely failed, and she found herself needing to sleep about as much as a Koala. If she does something as demanding as public speaking (which her role demanded), she would need to sleep for whole of the next day. Because of her illness, she has had to give up her academic career, her position as principal, and much of her ministry - a ministry she felt called to and saw a real need for.
How is God achieving anything with her now? How is God’s power on display as she spends most of her days in bed?
Who wants to be weak?
And yet, at the very heart of the gospel is the shocking and even repulsive idea that God’s power is made perfect not in strength, but in weakness. That somehow, it is better to be poor than rich, a nobody rather than a somebody, struggling rather than kicking goals, shamed and insulted rather than praised.
If you’re not a bit offended by this, perhaps you’ve forgotten the last time you were really insulted, or praise God, no one has ever tried to shame you.
Since Jesus’ first words, people have struggled to come to grips with his insistence that the despised, lowly, rejected, outcast, weak, sinners, these are the ones highly esteemed by God. For 2000 years people have constantly been tempted away from the reality that God himself triumphed by humbling himself, accepting the shame of the cross. Christians have been tempted away from that, towards some way of saying, well yes that was then, but now God favours the powerful, rich and successful and he wants all these things for you. From Popes in palaces to contemporary church leaders in Leer jets, there’s always been someone who wants to get past the cross.
And before we judge, can you blame them? Who can accept Christian faith? That God’s unlimited power is most clearly seen and most profoundly applied in human weakness. Who can wrap their heads around the idea that my friend Louise is now experiencing more of God’s perfect power than when she was climbing the ranks of academia and leadership?
It constantly trips us up, but if we are to encounter God’s loving presence, if we’re to know him, really, authentically, then we need to meditate on the cross shaped truth, that God’s power is made perfect in weakness.
So we’re going to that for the next 5 weeks. I’ve called this series Perfected in weakness. And in this series we’re going to look at how God’s power and love for us is perfected in various ways we might experience weakness, from disability, sickness, mental illness, and even death.
And along the way, I’m hoping that we’ll come to expect God to show up at the very points in our lives where we feel weakest.
So let me pray
Prayer
Heavenly Father, everything we know tells us to see our weaknesses as a sign that you are absent - at least from those parts of our lives. But Lord, as we reflect on the paradox of the cross, and the mystery of the upside down way you work, help us to see that our weaknesses are the very place you are at work.
We pray in Jesus name,
Amen.
God reveals himself to us by becoming weak, which ought to unsettle us
God reveals himself to us by becoming weak, which ought to unsettle us
State
It’s completely natural for us to think that when God shows up, he ought to be impressive. We’re talking about the one who made everything, who spoke and planets and stars and galaxies burst into existence, who holds the oceans in his hands, who formed human beings out of dust, who can’t be contained by the ever expanding universe. He ought to be overwhelmingly awe inspiring. Which is why the gospel is such a shock.
show
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
Explain
This statement is strange isn’t it? It’s weird! Who would imagine that weakness beats strength? I’m not a betting man, but I know that people love an underdog. But no one bets on an underdog they think is actually weaker than the competition. They bet on the underdog because the underdog is underestimated. But that’s not what is going on when the bible speaks of God choosing the weak to shame the strong.
When God shows up in person, he shows up in weakness. God has revealed who he is to us - by becoming weak, be becoming ‘foolish’ in the eyes of the world. There was no more definitive sign that you were a fool and a failure than to claim to be Messiah and King and then be crucified.
But that is exactly the way God chose to show up. As Martin Luther pointed out, the cross seems to contradict all that one might reasonably have anticipated God to be.
We’re so used to the idea now, because we celebrate it every Christmas, but it really is revolutionary, and repulsive. What good is a God who is just one of us? What can he do? What good is a God who is weak? Is he even worthy of the name.
Shouldn’t God come as a conqueror, a warrior, the one who beats the bad guys and saves the day. Shouldn’t God come to us as the one who can destroy every tyrant from Nero to Hitler? Putin or Pol Pot?
Shouldn’t God come as the one who banishes all weakness, so that no strong man can ever bully anyone again? Shouldn’t God come as the one who makes us healthy, wealthy and wise. Yes, the prosperity gospel is a natural way to think. But that’s the problem.
And yet, over and over again, the NT insists that we never see God more clearly than when we are looking at Jesus dying for us. We never see God more clearly than when he embraces weakness. And while it goes against every instinct we have, it tells us that our instincts about how God should act are wrong.
Our instincts, that God ought to be the strongest of strong men turn out to be an obstacle to knowing him. And in his love for us, he comes to unsettle us, to upset our expectations, to show us that we are not dealing with just a bigger, smarter human being, but the God who does things in ways we never would have considered. The God who turns our weaknesses into strengths.
Transition
God reveals himself to us by becoming weak, and in our weakness.
God reveals himself to us in our weakness, which ought to comfort us
God reveals himself to us in our weakness, which ought to comfort us
state:
As much as we might want a sky fairy who grants our every wish, in Christian faith we are dealing with the real God who does not follow our whims. While he doesn’t promise to fix every weakness or obstacle we face this side of eternity, he does promise that he will use our weaknesses to make himself known to us.
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For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.
Explain
Jesus is not Zeus or Superman, helping those who suffer though never suffering himself. Because he became human, the Son of God knows every part of our pain and weakness, he sympathises.
Again, this is so counter intuitive.
“All our natural intuitions tell us that Jesus is with us, on our side, present and helping, when life is going well. This text says the opposite. It is in “our weaknesses” that Jesus sympathizes with us....In our pain, Jesus is pained; in our suffering, he feels the suffering as his own even though it isn’t.” - Ortland, Gentle and Lowly pg. 46
This is where we see how God’s refusal to follow our expectations is actually wonderful news for us. Because he become weak, we have a God who understands our weakness.
Illustration
During my honours year studying theology, I spent a lot of time pondering this topic. And one of the images I thought about a lot was this one [Isenheim altarpiece - Grunewald]. It shows Jesus crucified and then being buried. But the really important thing is in both images, Jesus has plague sores - which, historically is totally inaccurate! Jesus never contracted the bubonic plague! But this image is true to the message of Hebrews 4. That Jesus has experienced the full range of human experience - especially our weaknesses. He knows enough of sickness to sympathise with the masses of Europe who caught the black death.
Explain
He knows enough of your weakness to sympathise with whatever you are facing.
“He knows what it is to be thirsty, hungry, despised, rejected, scorned, shamed, embarassed, abandoned, misunderstood, falsely accused, suffocated, tortured, and killed.” - Ortland pg. 47
And with that knowledge, he allows himself to feel.
“Consider your own life. When the relationship goes sour, when the feelings of futility come flooding in, when it feels like life is passing us by, when it seems that our one shot at significance has slipped through our fingers, when we can’t sort out our emotions, when the longtime friend lets us down, when a family member betrays us, when we feel deeply misunderstood, when we are laughed at by the impressive-in short, when the fallenness of the world closes in on us and makes us want to throw in the towel-there, right there, we have a friend who knows exactly what such testing feels like, and sits close to us, embraces us. With us. Solidarity.” Ortland pg. 48
You may be thinking, that’s nice. He’s a good listener. He’s empathetic.
But why do I need that, when what I really want is for him to just make the problem go away.
Well again, here’s where we come back to God’s refusal to meet our expecations being good news for us.
Because we don’t just need a doctor who hands us a script, we need to know that somoene is with us.
There’s actually medical research to back this up! The effectiveness of medication is significantly improved when it’s delivered by someone you feel understands you.
It reflects how we are wired - we are made for relationship, we are made to be together, most profoundly we are made to be united with God. And the beauty of Jesus life and ministry, his death, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, is that our creator, the one who knows us completely, doesn’t tell us that we have to come up and meet him where he is - in power and strength and glory. He doesn’t require us to lift ourselves up, instead he comes down and meets us in the most intimate way when we are weak. When we need him most.
Yes, even when we are feeling week because of our sin.
He knows what its like to be tempted, even better than we do because he never gave in, so he can sympathise with us. We might think, yes, but he never sinned, so he doesn’t really know what its like does he. CS Lewis points out that it actually works the other way. Lewis said temptation is like walking against the wind. Once the wind gets strong enough, we lie down and give in, and therefore we don’t know what it would be like ten minutes later, when the wind picked up even more. But Jesus never lay down. He never got out of the gale and so Jesus knows temptation better than any of us.
And Hebrews says that’s why he sympathises with us. In our deepest temptations, in our most shameful and embarassing failures, he comes to us not to lecture, but with sympathy.
As Dane Ortland puts it, “if you are in Christ, you have a friend who, in your sorrow, will never lob down a pep talk from heaven. He cannot bear to hold himself at a distance. Nothing can hold him back. His heart is too bound up with yours.”
Transition
Our weakness is no barrier to him. In fact, it’s a strength.
Here’s the thing: just as he worked powerfully to redeem us by making himself weak, so he works powerfully to continue his redeeming work through us when we are weak.
God works through our weakness, in spite of our strength
God works through our weakness, in spite of our strength
State
No, not the other way around! It’s our strengths that are often liabilities. And the gospel shows us that it’s when we are weak that God’s grace and love and power are most clearly seen at work through us.
Illustration
Tish Harrison Warren in Prayer in the Night points out that often our motto as Christians is something like “we serve God with our strengths and find grace for our weaknesses.” We think that God smiles on our strengths, our competence, our capacity for goodness and beauty. And then, by grace, all our pesky imperfections are swept under the rug. But the good news of Jesus is not that we get a merit badge for being put together and hope that God ignores our failures. We serve God not only with our strengths, but in our weaknesses.
Show
but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
Explain
It turns out, our strength, or illusion of it is often a barrier to serving God. (see Ortland/Goodwin). When we are healthy (relatively), solvent, and more or less in a good place, we find it easy to think that we have something to offer God. In fact, the more healthy our bodies, our CVs and our bank balances, the more likely we are to think that these ‘resoruces’ are just what God needs. Good we think, I’ve got something in the tank so now I can serve God.
But why should we think, after everything we see in the gospel about God working upside down and inside out, that he when it comes to serving God, suddenly everything’s right way up again? Why should we think that after showing us who he is by becoming weak, making himself known to us most profoundly when we are weak, that suddenly when it comes to serving, and working through us, suddenly God needs us to be strong?
Short answer: we shouldn’t. If we recall Paul’s words in Philippians 3:7-9 we see the logic of the cross: in terms of being ‘useful’ to God, Paul has the strongest CV of any of us. Hands down, he knows he can beat anyone in a contest. And yet, he realises that Jesus has turned the world completely upside down and inside out, and that anything that he might’ve thought was an asset is now a liability. All of his religious credentials, all of his ethnic and racial heritage, all of his authentic passion for God - in light of the fact that God’s power is made perfect in weakness, all of our CVs become liabilities.
Paul says that even though he’s had the Everest of mountaintop spiritual experiences, something that the most Pentecostal of us can only dream of, he refuses to rely on it, he even seems downright suspicious of it and instead focuses on his weakness.
Illustration
I remember one church I went to had booked a speaker to do a series of talks at their house party, a weekend away. And we’d been told that this guy was really charismatic, he was very in touch with the “Spirit” and he’d had all these amazing experiences. And when I met him, he made sure he told me about them. He told me how God had done all these incredible things, taking churches that were about to close and multiplying them by 30x in just a few months. He told me he’d God free seen crack addicts, saw them get clean and sober instantly. He had all these stories of seemingly amazing instances of God’s power at work. The thing is, in every story, this guy seemed to be at the centre. As I was listening I noticed that while he gave credit to God, a lot of the credit seemed to be going to him too. And it seemed like he really wanted me to think he was the hero.
I wasn’t surprised to learn later that he was a bully, that for all his talk, it was obvious by the way he treated people that he didn’t know God at all. He wasn’t interested in the God who gives grace to the humble, because he didn’t want to be humble. And because he didn’t want that God, he didn’t know that God.
The cross shows us that often, our strength, our impressiveness, our CV is an obstacle to knowing God. And we ought to be weary of anyone trumpeting their credentials, telling us stories of God doing amazing things - but where they are the hero of the day.
What the gospel shows us is that God has no trouble working through our weaknesses, but he can even work in spite of our strengths. Because his power is made perfect in weakness.
Apply
I’m aware that in a church like ours, at a time like this, it’s easy to wonder if God doesn’t need us to be more. More impressive, more active, more contemporary, more relevant? We may see the task God has given us, to go and make disciples of Jesus in south belconnen and think, how on earth do we do that? If only we had a tech guru, a crack team of musicians, a wealthy patron, a swag of hip youth leaders, a gun evangelist, a social media sage and on and on it goes. If only we were more.
You may be tempted to think if only I was more. Then God could work through me. If only I was, in the cynical words of the band Radiohead, fitter, happier, more productive. Then God would work.
But to think that way is to think that God’s power is perfected in strength. To think that way is to think that God needs us to be something were not before he can use us. To think that way is to say that God has no use for us if we don’t fit the mould of what the world deems attractive.
But God is calling us to embrace weakness. To not just accept it as a part of life, it is. But more than that, to embrace it. To see weakness, being unimpressive, uncool, and uninfluential as an asset. Becuase it means that when he works (when not if) his power is all the more obvious. When he works through our weakness and in spite of our strength, the people of south belconnen will be able to see the power of God. The people of south belconnen will see the weird upside down life of the gospel and come and find it for themselves.
But God is calling us to embrace weakness. To not just accept it as a part of life, it is. But more than that, to embrace it. To see weakness, being unimpressive, uncool, and uninfluential as an asset. Becuase it means that when he works (when not if) his power is all the more obvious. Because it means that when he works, the weird, upside down life opened up to us in the gospel stands out. It’s attractive.