You all know how this
kids song goes—or at least I hope you do. Say it along with me:
My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there’s
nothing my God cannot do
My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there’s
nothing my God cannot do
The mountains are His, the rivers are His, the stars
are His handy work too
My God is so great, so strong and so
mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do—for you!
Like
so many of the songs we learned in Sunday school, this song shares the
wonderful and profound truth of who our God is and how He works. God is strong
and mighty and He acts for you! That’s good news! That’s the good news that we
hear in our text this morning.
We
have nothing we can bring to the table; nothing we can boast about, nothing
that we do that makes God happy. All we have is His grace! All that matters is
what God thinks of us! How do we know what God thinks of us? Look no further
than the cross and see Jesus dying for you. That’s grace. Look at the altar and
see His gift for you—broken and poured out for you. It’s His forgiveness given
in bread and wine. You don’t deserve God’s kindness, but God forgives you fully
and freely because Jesus died in your place.
Paul sets himself up as
a really interesting example of the way grace works. He mentions two strange
things that have happened in his life—but only mentions them in passing because
he wants to get on to the point.
First
he talks about getting swept up into paradise. We’d love to know more about
this, but Paul is intentionally vague about every detail! He doesn’t even care
if it was a vision or if it actually happened. Apparently he heard some awesome
stuff, but doesn’t talk about that either.
Now
that would be something to boast about! That would be worth telling people
about! Wouldn’t it? Apparently not for Paul. In Philippians 3:8 he said this:
Indeed,
I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count
them as rubbish [dung], in order that I may gain Christ.
Paul
knows Jesus, Jesus knows Paul. What more is there? What can be better? If
anything, Paul is going to boast about his weakness. With visions, miracles,
speaking in tongues, and seeing Jesus alive, it would be easy to be conceited—who
wouldn’t? So Paul says that to keep him from being conceited he received a
thorn in his flesh. We don’t know exactly what this is. It could have been a
physical disability, temptation, or something else. Again, Paul doesn’t give us
the specifics because he’s trying to get to his point.
Paul
is going to boast in all sorts of weaknesses because they show that the power,
the driving force, behind everything that he does isn’t himself. The power is
coming from God. The great revelations and thorns don’t actually matter. Paul
knows Jesus, Jesus knows Paul. You know Jesus, Jesus knows you. Jesus gives you
his grace and that is enough.
God
always has worked by giving His grace to the weak: Need a nation started? Who
would you pick? People like our founding fathers would be a good choice—they
were the some of the smartest people of that generation. But God chooses an
elderly couple with no children and promises to make them the parents of more
children than the stars of the sky.
Need to kill a giant?
Who would you pick? I would at least want someone with a little military
experience. God chooses a kid with five rocks, a sling, and an unshakeable
confidence in the LORD’s power to slay the mighty warrior. It turns out those
five rocks were four more than David actually needed to kill Goliath.
Need a place to bring
the savior into the world? Where would you pick? I would have chosen a nice
palace with a soft bed. God chooses first the womb of a virgin, then a manger to
bring His Son into the world.
Need
to start the church? Who would you pick? You probably wouldn’t pick a group of
ordinary fishermen, tax collectors and zealots but go instead for the wise and
learned. But look who Jesus picked!
Need to bring your message
to the world? Who would you pick? It probably wouldn’t be someone who hated you
and your message—someone who wanted to arrest your followers and approved of
their death. But that was Paul himself! God choose him to prove that it was all
His grace and none of Paul’s action.
We
should see a pattern here. Age doesn’t matter to God. Human strength doesn’t
matter. Economic status and education don’t amount to much either. God does all
these things to show that His grace and power are enough for us. Don’t think
that God can’t still use you. God does His best work when people are weak—when they
have nothing but His grace.
For
the greatest example of God working through weakness, we need look no further
than the cross. Jesus didn’t come in His power and glory to defeat sin and
death with a public display of His power. Instead He worked through the worst
possible type of weakness to save us all from death and sin. There was no
greater sign of weakness than the cross. A crucified person can’t do anything.
All their dignity was stripped away with the cloths from their back. Jesus died
in horrible pain and agony.
But
that’s where God’s Son went for you. He became the weakest thing in the entire
world in order to save you. God used what was weak to show His strength. And He
showed His strength three days later when He raised Jesus from the dead! By
doing this, God has shown that our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting
life.
Looking
through the lens of the cross and empty tomb, things get turned upside down.
The weakness and foolishness of the cross becomes God’s strength and
wisdom.
This
is really hard for us to see for two reasons. We’re either so used to relying
on our own strength, we don’t think we need God, or we have so little strength,
we don’t think God can work through us. Both are wrong.
We
Americans pride ourselves in being able to control our own destiny. We call
ourselves self made people. Hard work and determination are good things, but as
we’ve already seen, God doesn’t take that into account when He thinks about
you. Compared to God; your strength is weakness, your wisdom is folly, and your
life is but a handbreadth. But God in His grace gives you strength for your
weakness, the wisdom of Christ for your folly, and life for your death.
Some
of us have seen our self made worlds collapse around us. Eventually they all
will! Maybe it came with a cancer diagnosis, maybe it came with the loss of
something or someone near and dear, or maybe it came with just getting older.
No matter the way this realization came into your life, you now see that you
can’t do it on your own. This is where we should be in order to hear about
God’s grace and receive good news. The problem comes when that good news goes
in one ear and out the other because we are so caught up in our despair that we
can’t hear—we can’t listen. When this happens to you, listen again. Hear that
God works through weakness. God helps those who cannot help themselves. God
gives joy in weakness because He gives grace and that’s enough. We have
forgiveness and because we have forgiveness we have life.
On
the morning of March 31, as I was headed down to Warrensburg for my surgery, I
remember praying something like this, “God, you can’t let me die.” (Remember at
that point we didn’t actually know how bad the cancer was) “God, you can’t let
me die. There’s too much going on at church. We’ve started so much; I want to
see it happen.”
I
see now that this wasn’t the best thing to pray. (But He listened and spared me
anyway.) God is certainly capable of doing all things without me! He hasn’t
spared me because He needs me. He hasn’t healed me because of the things I’ve
done or the things we’re going to do. He is God, I am not. His healing has been
a complete gift. Compared with God’s grace, what does anything else matter for
me? I know Jesus, Jesus knows me.
What
we see, even in our own congregation, is that the Church of God is not
sustained by human power, wisdom, or strength. Instead Christ’s Church is
supported, run, and grown by God’s grace and mercy alone. If anything our
effort, pride, and boasting get in the way at best and are destructive at
worst.
Yes,
I will join Paul, I will even boast in my cancer! Why? When I am weak, then I
am strong. Because:
My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there’s
nothing my God cannot do
My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there’s
nothing my God cannot do
The mountains are His, the rivers are His, the stars
are His handy work too
My God is so great, so strong and so
mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do—for you!
Amen.
