Strength in Weakness - Keswick at Portstewart Monday 8 July 2024

 

KESWICK AT PORTSTEWART

NOTES FROM BIBLE STUDY – JOHN RISBRIDGER

MONDAY 8 JULY 2024

READING: 2 CORINTHIANS 1 VERSE 1 – 11

 

What is your image of a great leader?  A good strong leader.  Are good leaders always meant to be strong?  Are strong leaders always good?  Many of us think so at least in the political realm.  They come right across the world - Teflon leaders of today – non stick relationships with trouble and difficulty who seem to sail through without any trouble or difficulty.  They may not win any arguments on rational grounds but they will win the fight.  They seem invincible as they ride the wave of popular sentiment even at the expense of previously declared principles.  Good strong leaders.  It seems it is what we like.  This is what the Christians in the first Century Corinth were seeming to like.  Paul had planted the church in Corinth – we read of that in Acts 18 but Paul’s relationship with the Corinthian church was always stormy.  We are now 5/6 years on from the planting comes after a series of letters.  The tensions remain.  Now some new impressive figures had arrived.  They were drawn from the church in Jerusalem.  They had a strong Jewish background.  For these new arrivals in Corinth frankly Paul is seen as a loser, an earnest but unimpressive figure.  To be honest the church would be better off without him.  The leaders had appointed themselves as apostles.  By comparison he was to them rather timid – chapter 10.  All words and no actions.  Unimpressive as a communicator.  Frankly a bit inferior.  Not even good enough to command a decent fee for his preaching or so they said.  When it came to the point of boasting of great spiritual experiences and revelations from heaven in their judgment he was a bit thin, he was lacking as a good strong leader.  Their good strong Jewish pedigree with a great history of salvation seemed to give them an edge over Paul.  He spent his time with Gentiles and Gentile matters.  He was lacking.  Not quite the real thing. They needed something better.  That is what Paul is responding to in this book.  There is a strong leadership focus in this book.  He addresses many areas of leadership in this book.  The primary function of biblical leadership in the New Testament is not to do with power but with example.  Most of what is said to leaders in this book is relevant to disciples as well.  What it means to be authentic disciples.  It is a letter for all of the people of God.  The striking thing about the response Paul gives he takes different form to what they expect.  Rather than defending himself and polishing up his credentials he repeatedly makes the point that it is in his weakness that his true strength is found.  Strength in weakness – chapter 12 verse 10 “I delight in weakness.”  How surprising that statement was.  Addressed to Corinthians who loved good strong leaders – why – “because when I am weak then I am strong.”  Strength in weakness.  That theme is there from the start in 2 Corinthians.  Paul introduces himself in chapter 1 not as some superman leader who sees off every challenge with ease and indifference but rather someone who had to find the comfort of God in all his troubles – verses 3 and 4.  Someone with his great difficulties as he writes this from Turkey, so intense were his trials that he despaired of life itself.  He needed the comfort of God.  Somehow that disqualified him from leadership.  This is the mark of his authenticity in leadership.  “Anyone who has known only his strength not his weakness has never given himself to a task which demands all he can give.”  Paul was that kind of leader - he had given his all in his mission of God.  He asserts that the mark of true leadership is not found in toughness, the gifting or charisma or the crowd pleasing charm of a leader but fundamentally it is found in God himself, who he is (the Father of mercies and God of all comfort) and in what he has done (the God who raises the dead).

The mark of authentic leadership.  Authentic leaders are those who experience the tenderness of God in troubles and who exercise faith in the power of God as they lead.

Firstly, authentic leaders are marked by their experience of God’s tenderness.  Deliberately using that word experience here - authentic leaders experience God.  Paul is saying here, he has experienced the God of comfort when he has faced all kinds of trouble.  He launches off in verse 3 with a classic Jewish form of praise out of the synagogue liturgy “blessed be God who …” and the Jewish people would know how to finish it off.  For Paul he finishes it differently, it was turned upside down on the Damascus Road as his understanding was transformed in an instant.  He realised then that it was there in the face of Jesus Christ that the glory of God was most truly seen. God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ - the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  This God has revealed himself as the God of all compassion and comfort.  Long ago the prophet Isaiah in chapter 40 had prophesied that Yahweh would step in among his people as Jesus the Messiah with “comfort, comfort for my people.  God has revealed himself to Paul as the Father of compassion and the God of comfort.  God as the Father of mercies and God of all comfort – did you see the plurals?  Not a little but abundant mercies.  The God who has plenty of mercies, enough mercy, kindness, compassion for all of Paul’s troubles.  He comforts us in all our troubles, whatever they may be.  Enough mercy, plenty for you for your deepest struggles, plenty for your most keenest felt weaknesses. God who is there enough. for your disposition.  For you is one of tenderness.  Don’t have to prise mercy out of him for there are plenty of mercies and compassion.  He is there for you today.  He is the God of all comfort.  Paul cannot say enough but all comfort - abundance, sufficiency.  God who will one day wipe away every tear from our eyes and who now in the midst of time comes to those crushed in spirit - Psalm 34.  The Father of mercies.  The God of all comfort.  Have you come to him troubled, broken, weary, on the verge of giving up, losing heart?  It begins here with an invitation for us to come and bring our struggles, vulnerability and failure.  To know you are coming to a God of all comfort.  If there is a voice in your head saying “not for me” you need to silence the voice in your head that says otherwise.  He is the God of mercies and of all comfort.  Is he for you and no-one else?  Not just a theoretical argument for Paul.  This is a lived experience.  He comforts us in all our troubles.  It is his own personal experience of the tenderness of God in his troubles that qualifies him for leadership and ministry.  Verse 4.  If you have lost someone close to you and you are feeling eaten up with grief and sorrow, who do you want to talk to in that situation – one who sailed through life with no obvious difficulties and trouble?  I don’t think so.  You need someone like Jesus.  He was the man of sorrows.  He knew trouble, he came to experience that trouble, experienced the God of mercies.  The Father of all comfort.  That is what leadership looks like.  This is the God I know.  Who I have found in Christ.  Come to me in my troubles.  This is authentic leadership coming straight out of Paul’s own experience of the tenderness of God.  We all need that experience.  He develops this in verses 5 and 6.  He is not just offering some short-term pain relieving comfort but a healing, transformative comfort enabling us to get up and go after seasons of feeling downcast.  If you are broken, weary or struggling - well the God of comfort is here for you and wants to minister his grace to you.  For Paul this experience of the tenderness of God that he could share with other broken believers mattered more than all the techniques other leaders could bring.  He could comfort them because he knew the tenderness of God himself.  It is truly wonderful to experience that, but it is not the only important thing. 

Paul did not stop there.  He tells us that true leaders are marked by faith or his language here on the reliance on the power of God.  The God who raises the dead.  Verse 8.  We are not told exactly what the presenting problems were.  We don’t know for sure. The most obvious candidate was the riot, the mob violence that happened in Ephesus told in Acts 19.  Equally in 2 Corinthians 11 he lists plethora of devastating experiences.  Or it could be his thorn in the flesh, maybe it was some chronic health condition.  Maybe that is what he is referring to.  This experience broke Paul and pushed him right to the limit of his mental health.  He was utterly burdened beyond strength.  Pushed to the point where he despaired even of life itself and felt the sentence of death.  We would call it today acute anxiety and serious depression.  Verse 8 “I don’t want you to be ignorant of this trouble.”  We need to take seriously that the great apostle Paul was pushed to the point, right on the edge of his mental health.  He experienced acute anxiety and significant depression.  We need to look these things in the eye.  Look what Paul learned from this traumatic and painful of experiences – verse 9.  That is a whole different angle of leadership.  It will equip him to be a leader in a different sense altogether.  Churches need the compassion of ministers but also comfort of God.  But they also need to see faith not in themselves but in the God who raises the dead to lead his people out to God’s mission.  Authentic leadership must pivot in both directions.  For Paul the experience in Asia was the death of self-reliance, believing he had all the answers but it was also the beginning of a real practical confidence in the transforming power of God as the God who raises the dead. It is important to know God raised his son from the dead in history.  The moment around which other moments have to reorganise themselves.  The beginning of new creation.  The resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  It is also important to know that God will raise the dead when Jesus returns in all his glory and calls us from the grave to join him in a new creation.  Resurrected bodies to share his reign. In the middle of time we also need to know that he still raises the dead. We need to know now that he is sufficient.  To know for now in the most crushing experiences of our life when the challenge of serving Jesus seems overwhelming, when the opposition is unrelenting he is willing to get involved.  He is the God who raises the dead.  Still is, always will be.  Paul says “I will never be the same again.”  Verses 10 and 11.  He has learned his reliance on God, not as some slogan.  It meant stretching until it hurt in the mission of God and knowing God would come through for him. Taking a risk, not being trapped in the comfort of his church community but stepping out into the world, knowing God would come through for him. This is real trust in God who raises the dead. If leaders are going to lead you into fruitfulness they also need to be leaders of faith.  That self-reliance has been stripped away and they rely on the power of God who raises the dead.  We also need to know the power of prayer by his people.  Verse 11 - not just as helped by prayer but by your prayers.  Paul needed the prayers of other people.  Not just his own.  He needed the prayers of other people to survive and flourish in ministry and so do you and I.  I sometimes get the impression we only need the prayers of other people just when we are about to die or when we are facing some other transforming time of tragedy.  I need the prayers of the people of God.  We need the prayers of other people.  There is no shame in asking others to pray for you.  Just normal Christian faith.  We need the prayers of the people of God.  That they are not just sticking plaster prayers.  Looking to encounter God, to be drawn to his wisdom, touched by his tenderness and compassion.  In that faith filled sensitive prayer that we can find the power of God who raises the dead and we can know that in our lives too.

Good strong leaders.  Paul says true strength is to be found in weakness.  That is the story of Paul’s life.  That is the story of the grace of the crucified Jesus whose greatest victory was won through the unspeakable weakness and suffering of the cross.  If you are sure you want good strong leaders make sure it is the cross shaped strength you are looking for.  The strength of celebrity will disappoint you but the strength that flows from the cross of Jesus displayed in the lives of people who know the tenderness of God and who rely on the power of God.  That strength can help transform you.  Let’s be careful about the kind of leaders we want.  Those who are leaders let us be careful about the leaders we aspire to be – do we want to be leaders marked by the compassion of the Father of mercies and by faith in the God who raises the dead?  Show your weakness and your trust in the God who raises the dead.  Not just about leadership.  It is the mark of authentic discipleship.  God of all comfort is ready to come to us all in our troubles and to use them to strip away our self-reliance, to teach us to walk by faith not by sight.