Pentecost 6 - Boast in Your Weakness

Dear friends in Christ,

The world is preparing for the Olympics.  Athletes will gather in a few weeks in the city of London to test their strength against one another.  They will compete in all sorts of events to see who is the strongest runner, the strongest swimmer, the strongest basketball or volleyball or soccer team.  And when they have decided through competition, they will crown the winner and we will all celebrate theirs strengths.  Because that is what we celebrate…  Strength. 

While that works fine in athletic competition, when it comes to our spiritual lives, strength is a liability.  We think it helps us.  We think it gives us a leg up.  We think it keeps us moving in the right direction.  We are wrong.  Our strength gets in the way.  Our strength messes things up.  People are proud of their strength, but when it comes to things spiritual, the mature and healthy Christian boasts with the Apostle Paul in their weakness. 

We really want to think of ourselves as strong, spiritually strong.  When we think of Christians we admire, we always evaluate them according to their strength.  We say things like, “Do you know so and so – he is a really strong Christian.” Or “What about her? She has a really strong faith.” Or maybe you think to yourself, in your own mind, “I have missed church a few times, but it’s okay. My faith is still strong?”

That is what we would like to think.  The question is, how do you know?  When you are trying to measure the strength of your faith, what criteria do you use? 

It often has to do with the way that we feel about ourselves.  “I feel like I am a Christian.  I feel like I have a strong faith.  Therefore I must have a strong faith.”  That is a dangerous way to evaluate your spiritual health.  How many people, after all, have claimed to have felt fine, with not even a symptom only to go to the doctor and discover they have some terminal sort of sickness or disease.  They felt fine when they were actually quite ill.  Feeling fine, feeling strong doesn’t mean you are strong.

A second way we measure is by how much good stuff we do.  Do we help people?  Do we follow all the rules?  Do we volunteer? Do we pray enough?  Read our Bibles enough?  Or maybe we haven’t and think we should, with the understanding, of course, that it will make us strong.  We measure our strength by the things we do.  This is good works theology.  This is legalism.  It doesn’t make us strong.  That’s what they Pharisees did, the way they acted.  They followed lots of rules and thought that by doing so they were undergirding their strength.

But what did Jesus say?  “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17 ESV) Jesus called them white washed tombs who looked good on the outside and were full of death and deceit on the inside.  (Matthew 23:27-28)

Hypocrites we call them.  They deserve what they have coming.  We can’t stand hypocrites.  People who say one thing but do another.  Isn’t that what you do? You strong Christian?  Don’t you overlook your sin, push it back, push it down to keep it out of sight and out of mind?  You have to.  There is no other choice.  Otherwise it will take away your strength.  It will make you weak.  It will destroy you.  And so you deal with your sin on your own – you deal with it by pretending it isn’t there.  You deal with your weakness by trying to compensate for it with a self manufactured yet will artificial strength. 

Hypocrites and pretenders – that is what we are!

But God has another way.  A better way.  And it starts with repentance.  It starts with taking an honest look at ourselves. An honest look into the mirror of God’s law.

In Psalm 53 David writes:

God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. (Psalm 53:2-3 ESV)

God look in on us.  He sees not just our outward actions, not just the way we want to be seen by others, God measures us exactly as we are.  He measures our hearts, our motives, our innermost thoughts, and he sees that we are full of sin.  God sees behind the put on and pretend righteousness that we use to fool others and especially ourselves.  And God says that we are all in the same boat – no one who does good, no one who is righteous, not even one.  Strong Christians?  Not even close.  There’s no such thing. 

Paul knew that.  He knew the truth about himself.  He knew he was weak, he knew he was a sinner but he knew that his sin was washed clean by Jesus.  Paul knew that Jesus was strong for him.  Jesus was strong on his behalf to overcome his weakness.  Paul could look to Jesus, could lay his weakness at the feet of Jesus.  Could lay his fear at the feet of Jesus, could lay his doubt at the feet of Jesus, Could lay his sin at the feet of Jesus.  Paul could claim to be even the chief of sinners. Because Jesus was his strength. 

Sometimes, when patients are brought in to hospitals they are desperately in need of medical care and attention, but they don’t want to be helped.  They are so insistent that they are fine by themselves that they are a danger to themselves.  When the doctors and nurses care for them they resist so they need to be restrained.  Sometimes they even need to be sedated, given medications to put them into a sleep so they will submit to the treatments.  Friends you and I don’t need restraints, we don’t need sedation, we are so bad off that we need to die.  God takes one look at us and says, “It’s time to start over.”  And so he puts us to death, in baptism, where we are buried with Christ through baptism into death. And there he rebuilds us, from the inside out.  He pours us out.  He pours out our sin and self-centeredness, out natural narcissism, and he pours in Christ, through the Spirit and the Word to make us brand new. 

When this happened to Paul - God had given to the Apostle great revelations.  In our text Paul says that they Lord had taken him to heaven to give him great revelations – things too wonderful to be spoken.  This was God’s gift to Paul, a gift given for his encouragement and edification and for his understanding as he was to be a teacher and apostle to God’s people.  But Paul still had his sinful nature to contend with, a sinful nature that feels pride when it receives God’s gifts, that takes credit for the good gifts that God gives.  And so the Lord gave Paul a thorn in his flesh to remind him of his weakness. 

God does the same for us.  We have that same struggle – we take credit for God’s generosity.  We convince ourselves that we deserve the good things, the blessings we have received.  So God sends us little reminders of our weaknesses.  They don’t seem little, they don’t feel little, they can often feel like they are pretty big and imposing.  But they are God’s way of reminding us that we need him, that we don’t stand on our own strength, we don’t live by our own merit, we live by the grace of God.  We have that in truck loads. 

Luther talked about faith as an empty sack. Going to Jesus as a beggar, hoping only to receive.  Lord, I need what you have to offer.  I need the gifts you bring.  Fill me to the full so that I can be filled.

God fills us.  He gives us more than we could hope for.  He gives us exactly what we need.  We can look at ourselves in the mirror, even in God’s mirror of the law and see ourselves for who we truly are but still say with confidence that we are saved because of what Jesus has done for us.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.