Power Perfected In Weakness

Power Perfected in Weakness

February 10, 2013 Evening Service

Immanuel Baptist Church, Wagoner, OK

Rick Boyne

Message Point: God uses our weaknesses to demonstrate His strength.

Focus Passage: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Supplemental Passage: But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14 NASB)

Introduction: Pali, this bull has killed me." So said Jose Cubero, one of Spain's most brilliant matadors, before he lost consciousness and died. Only 21 years old, he had been enjoying a spectacular career. However, in this l958 bullfight, Jose made a tragic mistake. He thrust his sword a final time into a bleeding, delirious bull, which then collapsed. Considering the struggle finished, Jose turned to the crowd to acknowledge the applause. The bull, however, was not dead. It rose and lunged at the unsuspecting matador, its horn piercing his back and puncturing his heart. Just when we think we've finished off pride, just when we turn to accept the congratulations of the crowd, pride stabs us in the back. We should never consider pride dead before we are. Craig Brian Larson.

I. Weakness keeps us from boasting

a. God desires for us to empty ourselves of pride

b. Pride is thinking you are as good or better by yourself than with God

c. God hates a prideful heart

II. Weakness keeps us depending on God

a. Our insufficiencies keeps us at the Throne of Grace

b. Our weaknesses make us face our own inability

c. Examples: Peter, David, Moses, Abraham

III. God demonstrates His strength in our weakness

a. "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." (vs 9)

b. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18 NASB)

Invitation: "We should be thankful for any calamity that will humble us; and we should remember that clear and elevated views of God and heaven are, after all, more than a compensation for all the sufferings which it may be necessary to endure in order to make us humble." - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1Cor12:7)