1. “In order to keep me from becoming conceited, I
was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of
Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with
the Lord to take it away from me. 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 about
my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest
on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in
weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in
persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak,
then I am strong.” (2 Cor 12: 7-10)
2. “Thorn in flesh”?
• Not a temptation
• Probably a physical weakness or a difficult
person or situation
• Look around us: the most difficult person
could be our God-given ‘thorn in the flesh’
5. God’s Discipline
• God knows our arrogant easily-hardened hearts
• God knows the importance of destroying pride;
our human nature ‘naturally’ longs to rely only on
ourselves
• Gods wants to prove to us that our own efforts
are insufficient
• Good news: He is always there at the ‘end’ of the
road
7. God’s Frame
• Our pride tends to view our successes as resulting
from our own efforts
• We need to see events with the eyes of Christ
(and our weakness ‘forces’ us to see!)
• We don’t need miracles; we need believers
• Good news: He is already there even when we
don’t know it
9. God’s Self-Limitation
• We are intimately connected to God’s power via
our weaknesses (strength from weakness is like
the irrevocability of freedom)
• Faith really moves the hands of God – why?
Because God decided that it will.
• Good News: Weakness is raw material for greater
faith - asking for more faith is itself an act of faith!
10. “Jesus could do no
deed of power
there…he was
amazed at their
unbelief.”
(Mk 6:7)
13. God’s Hiddenness
• God wants to teach/show us another kind of power,
one the world doesn’t understand
• God’s power “looks like” weakness, so our power also
expresses itself through our weakness
• God’s power cannot but appear weak to a sinful world
• Good News: Whenever there is weakness, we know
(contra appearances) that God’s strength is being
perfected
18. Can we see the truth within
illusion, the authentic
embedded in the
superficial, the wonder
inside the ordinary, the
miraculous of the banal?
19. “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us
to him, nothing in his appearance that we
should desire him. He was despised and
rejected by mankind, a man of
suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their
faces, he was despised, and we held him in
low esteem.” (Isaiah 53:2-3)
20. Can we see the power of a ‘run
down’ traditional church?
21. Can we see the kingdom inside
‘simple’ parables?
22. Can we see the glory and
power of a man crucified?
23. “My grace is sufficient for you, for
my power is made perfect in weakness.”
