Listen to the sermon here: Give God Your Weakness
Reminders Week 3: Give God Your Weakness
2 Corinthians 12:1-10 NLT
12 This boasting will do no good, but I must go on. I will reluctantly tell about visions and revelations from the Lord.2 I was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only God knows. 3 Yes, only God knows whether I was in my body or outside my body. But I do know 4 that I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell. 5 That experience is worth boasting about, but I’m not going to do it. I will boast only about my weaknesses. 6 If I wanted to boast, I would be no fool in doing so, because I would be telling the truth. But I won’t do it, because I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message, 7 even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. 8 Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Your weakness is God’s way to make you His witness.
God stuck a pin in Paul’s pride!
When I am weak God is strong.
#1. Is it a sin to be weak? No
We live in a fallen world, we are broken, we are flawed, it is not a sin to be weak, we are human.
#2. Is weakness a sign of a lack of faith? No
Let’s see, Jesus said if you have the faith of a grain of mustard seed, you can move mountains.
#3. Isn’t strength better than weakness? No
2 things about weakness
#1. When it comes to weakness, we want to understand it but God wants to unleash it.
God’s Power is Unleashed when we have No Power!
Jesus dying on the cross taught us that in WEAKNESS, the world will watch!
#2. We want to fix the problem but God wants to form the person.
3 times Paul says Please God remove the thorn.
Pain is the way that God operates on us!
“Pain is God’s megaphone to a deaf world that has fallen asleep.” C.S. Lewis
Samuel loves to whittle – When we are going through those hard times God is whittling away the things in our lives that are not like him.
Paul is begging, God can you take this away and God says, NO, I’m not going to fix you, I’m going to form you.
What is that weakness that you have been asking God to fix and God is saying no, because he is forming you?
#3. We want to control but God wants to create.
John 15: 1-2 “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.
God can take your biggest mess and make it your greatest message.
God can take your weakness and make it your witness.
When you share your weakness, people will lean in and listen.
