2 Corinthians 12:
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10 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.
These verses speak of something immensely important, we see God respond to Paul’s plea and as we read on, we will see God proclaiming his sufficiency to human weakness. But let’s start from the beginning and work our way to this. Here, Paul has a ‘thorn in the flesh’, whether it be physical or spiritual, he has something that is causing him to see and feel weakness in tangible way. Its something he doesn’t want, and so three times he pleads with the Lord to take it away. Yet in Paul’s weakness, in his lack of self-sufficiency, God proclaims, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul's response shows us the ground-breaking reality of these words. ‘For when I am weak, then I am strong.’ This is a process, its an equation, weakness then strength. The ‘shy, rarely showing his face’ mathematician inside of me is struggling here, weakness does not equal strength, its opposite, it doesn’t match up, but thats exactly the point, because when you take Paul out of the equation we see who’s really behind it all - God, ‘My power is made perfect in weakness.’ Our God, who uses the illiterate shepherds to proclaim the good news, faithless fisherman to be his disciples, a law-bound, christian-killer to write doctrine, and the one who first denied him to bring the first revival, is enough. Something happened in the case of all these people, something great and mysterious occurred - the love of God was given to them, and in their weaknesses they were strong, in their failures they were victorious? Why? Because his grace is sufficient and his power is made perfect in weaknesses.
What is weakness?
The subject of the weakness in this passage is Paul, he has ‘a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited’. See, firstly, weakness in this passage is not talking about sin. Sin is not causing Paul to be weak, but rather it is a difficult, painful situation, circumstance or experience, that he does not have the power or capacity to get rid of. He is stuck with it. The passage answers the question simply as ‘weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities’. From my perspective, I may not have felt those things as intensely as some have, but I certainly have experienced and seen such moments.
Understanding and confessing weakness is a humbling process. Human pride and the culture of the world are opposite to this, they say there is no place for weakness, ‘Be strong, overcome your circumstances’, but the reality is that God uses these situations for his glory. And only when we are humble, can we truly see this. Let me be clear though, God is not delighting in your sorrow or rejoicing in your troubling situation, but he is working all things for His good, he is letting us see more of Him through our situations. To perhaps understand this more, we ought to look at what the purpose of weakness is.
What is the purpose of weakness?
When you really look closely at this passage, the magnitude of these verses will change you. If we understand what weakness is, then we will be able to understand what the purpose of weakness is. However, this depends on where the weakness comes from. So the first question to really ask is ‘Who is the weakness from?’ The answer is two fold, firstly, ‘a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me‘ Here we see, clearly marked out, the weakness was from Satan, who’s intentions are ultimately to destroy man, to cause us to be proud, to cause us to fall and lose sight of Jesus; but when we read further on, we see the sovereignty of God,’a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.’ Its important to understand that this isn’t Paul trying to unearth a positive consequence from the work of Satan, its him recognising the sovereign hand of God working in every area of his life, even through weakness.
Paul is presented with a very real weakness, and so he pleads with the Lord to take it away because he sees who is really in control. As we looked at earlier, when we experience and recognise weakness we are faced with this worldly mindset that it is something to be ‘got rid of’, but it is so important to remember ‘the source of our weaknesses may sometimes be Satan and his destructive designs for us; but always our weaknesses are designed by God for our good. This is why the truth of God's sovereign grace is so precious in the midst of hardship and calamity. God is in control of Satan. Satan does nothing to God's children that God does not design with infinite skill and love for our good.’ (Good ol’ Piper!)
The Purpose? To Glorify Jesus!
We are never promised that weakness is something light, or that it will leave us at a whim. Weakness is real, painful and experienced and wrestled with by every person. So the most precious and important ‘need’ we have during weakness is to recognise the ultimate work of God through us. We are promised weakness, we are told to expect persecution, suffering, trials and sickness. But most of all we are promised that ‘All things work together for good’, we are promised that ‘I will never leave you or forsake’, we are promised that God is in control and he has triumphed! Look at the “Hall of Fame” (Hebrews 11) to see God triumphing through weakness. The reality of the Bible and testimonies of faith we hear and see is that weakness is used by God to bring about his eternal plan of salvation on earth. How wonderful and how awesome that we have a God who uses our weakness to bring about His goodness. See him at work in the weakness of Daniel and the three in the fiery furnace, in the weakness of Job, the weakness of the apostles, the weakness of Paul. Every passage of scripture and history is full of human weakness, and yet brimming with the sovereign work of God.
God’s power here, is the power of his grace. Satan gives Paul a thorn in the flesh, God gives grace, and so the evil working of the messenger of Satan is turned into the fruit of God-reliance in the life of Paul. The enemy strikes, and the power of God turns it around. God has used persecution in China for revival, he uses physical, chronic pain to draw people closer to Himself, He uses domestic messes to bring about purposes that no human could ever imagine, He uses breakups and breakdowns in relationships to bring people to see His love, He uses job loss, church splits, and broken homes and cities, God is a God of the impossible - He is able! His grace works as a reversal of the Satan-inflicted situation, and turns it into God-glorifying goodness. The emptiness of our weakness is filled by His grace and sufficiency and we bear fruit.
Let this encourage you, for when our weaknesses feel overwhelming, when our situations get too much - his grace is sufficient, when all around us seems dark, he has a purpose, he has a plan. Paul’s experience of God is so, that he says, ‘Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.’ His thirst and desire is for the power of Christ to fulfil his weakness, and this makes him actively boast and say, ‘Here is my weakness, look how Christ is totally sufficient.’ Suddenly, the weakness is not about him or me, but rather about God and his power in our lives. See, God doesn’t need us to be perfect and he doesn’t offer us present perfection, he sees our imperfections and fills them with his sufficiency, 'for when I am weak, then I am strong’.
There is so much value in recognising what the bigger picture holds, and seeing that the ultimate purpose of God in our weakness is to let us taste and see and experience the same power which created Heaven and Earth, the same power which brought Jesus to us and conquered death, the same power that caused the church to explode, and the Gospel to spread. In reality, we are not called to try and rid ourselves of weakness, but rather, see and understand that our weaknesses are all part of a greater purpose, they are all part of letting us grasp the grace and sufficiency of Jesus, that he might be glorified in and through us! Pray that our weaknesses might help us see and revel in the wonder of His love and goodness towards us, for this is what we are called to experience. We are able to proclaim that because of Jesus, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong!
