Title: Jars of Strength
Text: II Corinthians 12:6-10
Thesis: We are “Jars of Clay” who thrive out of weakness.
Series Review
We are:
• Jars of Treasure in whom and through whom Christ is seen.
• Jars of Caring to whom and through whom God comforts and cares.
• Jars of Generosity to whom and through whom God gives.
• Jars of Strength to whom and through whom God is strong.
Introduction:
Do you remember Mary Lou Retton? She was born with hip dysplasia and had a hip replacement as a child. In the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, she edged out her opponents by scoring perfect 10’s in the floor exercises and vault to win Olympic Gol for best all-around competition in gymnastics. She was inducted into the Olympic Hall of Fame in 1985. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lou_Retton
Today Mary Lou Retton is 40 years old. She is married, has three daughters, and lives in Houston. She is still 4’9” tall and still weighs 95 pounds. She no longer does 8 hour a day gymnastic sessions, but she does work out 45 minutes a day, five days a week on an elliptical-trainer.
This is what Mary Lou Retton said about herself in an article printed in the Denver Post on Monday of this past week. She said, “I am a work in progress like any other 40-year old working mother and wife.” (Glen Asakawa, The Denver Post, Fitness 3F, January 21, 2008)
I like that… I like the idea that Mary Lou Retton sees her life as a work in process. She does not live in the past. She did not hop off of the potter’s wheel when she won the Olympic God and declare, “I’m all done now! I’m finished!” She has stayed on the wheel… she is not who she was.
Her past experiences do not reflect her present reality.
I. Our past experiences can be a great source of satisfaction, but they may not reflect present reality.
• I have plenty to boast about and would be no fool in doing it, because I would be telling the truth. But I won’t, because I don’t want anyone to think more highly of me than what they can actually see in my life and message. II Corinthians 12:6
When we carefully read the text, three insights emerge:
• What has been cannot be denied… truth is truth.
• What has been is good for getting put up on a pedestal.
• What has been may disguise what is… weakness and inadequacy.
Paul had a pedigree. In the previous chapter he wrote, They say they are Hebrews, so am I. They say they are Israelites, so am I. They say they are descendants of Abraham, so am I. They say they serve Christ, so do I. In fact, I serve Christ more! II Corinthians 11:22-23
Paul had life experience. I have worked harder, been put in jail more often, received more lashes than I can count, faced death again and again, been ship wrecked and lost at sea, beaten, stoned, faced danger, lived with weariness, been hungry, thirsty, and cold, and in addition to all of that, I worry about the churches all the time. II Corinthians 11:23-29
Paul had ecstatic spiritual experiences. He met Christ on the road to Damascus in Acts 9 where Jesus confronted him and asked, “Why are you persecuting me?” That experience led to a radical conversion in which he became the radical follower of Christ we knew him to have been. In the verses immediately preceding our text today, Paul tells of what sounds like an out of body experience in which he was caught up into paradise where he saw and heard things beyond description. II Corinthians 12:1-4
Not only could Paul feel pretty good about himself and what he had done with his life… those to whom he told his story could easily have put him on a pedestal.
This is the problem with the past and the pedestal: they may not reflect present reality! Paul was concerned that the past and the pedestal would be inconsistent with what others actually saw in his life and heard in his message.
It is a sad thing to be an unworthy occupant of a pedestal. Second century Roman statesman, Cato the Elder once said, “After I am dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.” (Cato the Elder, 234-149BC, AKA Marcus Porius Cato)
In the 2000 Olympics, Marion Jones won three gold medals: the 100m dash, the 200m dash, and the 4x400m relay. In addition, she won two bonze medals. She was the first woman to win five medals in a single Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. She had hoped to complete at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
She was the Olympic golden girl but in October of 2007, however Marion Jones admitted having taken performance-enhancing steroids before the Sydney Games and forfeited all medals, results, and prizes dating back to September of 2000.
There is no denying that Marion Jones was a great athlete before she took the steroids. And there is no denying that she is a great athlete… but there is also no denying that whatever her past achievements, her present reality is this: on January 11, 2008, Marion Jones was sentenced to 6 months in prison for perjury concerning her involvement in a check cashing fraud case and her use of performance enhancing drugs. On March 11, she will begin her jail term. http://wikipedia,org/wiki/Marion_Jones)
• What has been, cannot be denied.
• What has been is good for getting put on a pedestal.
• What has been, may disguise what really is.
Whatever has been about our lives, our church, our homes, businesses, educational achievements, or whatever is undeniable truth. We can lift up the past and place it on a pedestal… we can lionize and legitimize persons, places, things, and events. But the danger of placing anyone or anything on a pedestal is that things on pedestals tend to get knocked off the pedestal when the reality of what people see and hear is inconsistent with the image portrayed on the pedestal.
Paul’s concern that no one think more highly of him than what they could
actually see and hear is a humbling reminder that we are all jars of clay. We are imperfect and the best we can boast is that we are clay in the Potter’s hands. Whatever people may think about us, the simple truth is that “God understands just how weak we really are; he knows we are only dust.” Psalm 103:14
In fact, it is our earthiness, our dustiness, the fact that we are jars of clay that make us most useful to God. God says that his power works best in our weakness.
Another way to say that is this:
II. Our puffiness is a hindrance to God’s power.
• Even though I have received wonderful revelations from God, to keep me from getting puffed up, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from getting proud. II Corinthians 12:7
Pride is an obstacle to our ability to be clay in God’s hands… it is pride that makes us want to shape ourselves into an image of our own making. It is pride that gives us a sense of empowerment, self-sufficiency, and even entitlement. Pride makes us feel like we have the power, can use the power, and are entitled to do so. Whenever anyone is prideful, that person is relying on himself or herself. One of the unfortunate consequences to pride and self-sufficiency is that that person is limiting himself or herself to their own human resources.
A proud person does not need God and does not reflect God… a proud person reflects himself and attracts attention to himself. God is not in the mix apart from lip service or token acknowledgement.
The week of January 14, I sat down and read through Time Magazine one evening. On the last page was an essay, Why They Run, Hint: it’s not because they are humble – or desperate to reform health care.
It was an insightful piece arguing that you may find a candidate running for the presidency of the United States or any other political office with whom you agree on every important issue, but that candidate “is forced by the conventions of politics to be disingenuous about at least one core issue: why he or she is running. Ladies and gentlemen, they are running because they are ambitious… and the purest form of ambition is political ambition, because it represents a desire to rule over people.” (Michael Kinsley, Time, January 14, 2008, P 72)
Pride can get a person the presidency of the United States of America. Pride can get a person a gold medal. Pride can get a person a trophy husband or a trophy wife. Pride can win beauty pageants and talent contests. Pride can earn promotions. Pride can motivate a person to excel in nearly any pursuit or venue. But God doesn’t have much use for a prideful person because the prideful person isn’t especially interested in being clay in the Potter’s hand.
It isn’t just about being beautiful, powerful, influential, or wealthy… it is about being self-reliant. It is about not seeing the need to depend on God or submit to the will and way of God.
It isn’t just the big people who are susceptible to the pride and ambition. I wonder who I would be if I were not me? What if I had the look of a Tom
Selleck; the persuasive powers of a Bill Clinton; the wealth of Bill Gates; the bravado of a Jack Nicholson; the intellectual powers of a William F. Buckley Jr.; and the wit of a Robin Williams?
The Apostle Paul seems to be saying that if he had not had a thorn in the flesh, he would likely have succumbed to the powers of pride and been useless in the hands of the Potter.
There is something about weakness and vulnerability that takes away our allusions of strength and self-sufficiency and forces us to rely on a power other than our own.
III. God’s power works best when are weak.
• Three different times I begged the Lord to take away the thorn in my flesh. Each time he said, “My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.” II Corinthians 12:8
This is not a new concept. In the Old Testament account of God calling out Moses to deliver the Children of Israel from their years of slavery in ancient Egypt, Moses argues that he cannot do what God asks because he just doesn’t have the skill set to do so.
Moses protested repeatedly in Exodus 3 and 4:
• Who am I?
• How can you expect me to lead?
• They won’t believe me.
• I’m not a good speaker.
• Lord, send someone else.
Unworthiness and weaknesses do not disqualify us so much as does our unwillingness. God can work with the unworthy, weak, flawed, humble person. God cannot work with a proud or unwilling person.
If a person is willing, God is able to use that person. In one way or another God answered each of Moses’ protests saying:
• “I WILL BE WITH YOU!”
In I Corinthians 1:26-29 Paul teaches about the wisdom of God. He wrote:
• This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength. Remember that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes, or powerful, or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God deliberately chose the things the world considers foolish to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose the things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. He chose the things that are despised and used them to bring to nothing that which the world considers important, so that no one can ever boast in the presence of God. I Corinthians 1:25-29
The whole history of Israel has been an example of the exploits of God through an unlikely people. Many cited the Six-Day War in 1967 that stunned the powers of the Middle East, as evidence that the weakness of God always trumps the power of man.
Who would have thought that a tiny little woman born in Albania would have become the single most widely admired person in the United States and in 1999 be voted the most admired person of the 20th Century? Who would have thought that this tiny little woman would start a missionary order in 1951 in the city of Calcutta that would in the next 40 years be 4,000 sisters strong, have an associated brotherhood of 300, 100,000 lay volunteers, and 610 missions in 123 countries?
Did you know that Billy Graham was born on a dairy farm in North Carolina? Did you know that he was turned down for membership in a local youth group because he was deemed to be “too worldly?” Did you know he attended what we now know as Bob Jones University, attending only one semester because it was too legalistic in coursework and rules? Did you know that Bob Jones Sr. once told him “at best all you could amount to would be a poor country Baptist preacher somewhere out in the sticks?” Did you know that in 1937 he was engaged to a classmate who broke off their engagements because she felt he did not have enough “religious purpose?”
Billy Graham is listed 7th among the list of most admired persons of the 20th Century. He preached in person to more people around the world than anyone who has ever lived. In 1993, 2.5 million people had received Christ through invitations at his crusades. This is the guy who would never be anything more than a country Baptist preacher out in the sticks. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Theresa)
I wonder if one of the reasons God used Mother Theresa and Billy Graham was because of the sheer unlikely ness of it all?
Among the unlikely of those God has used in extraordinary ways in our generation is Joni Eareckson-Tada. Paralyzed from a diving accident in 1967, she has had an impact for good and God in ways that would never otherwise have been possible. She has written 35 books, directs the Joni and Friends ministry, has traveled to 41 countries around the world, is one of the most sought after Christian conference speakers, her paintings, which she does with a brush she holds between her teeth are sought after… (http://www.joniandfriends.org/print_page.php?page=about_joni&)
Do you think Joni Eareckson-Tada ever asked God to take away her paralysis? Do you think she ever struggles with being the jar of clay that is her?
One of my favorite stories is of her being surrounded by a group of women in the restroom at a women’s conference. One lady remarked, as all the others nodded in agreement, “Oh Joni, you always look so together, so happy in your wheelchair. I wish I had your joy. How do you do it?”
She said, “I don’t. After my husband leaves for work at 6 A.M., I’m alone until I hear the front door open at 7 A.M. That’s when a friend arrives to get me up.
“While I listen to her make coffee, I pray, ‘Oh Lord, my friend will soon give me a bath, get me dressed, sit me up in my chair, brush my hair and teeth, and send me out the door. I don’t have the strength to face this routine one more time. I have no resources. I don’t have a smile, but you do. May I have yours? God, I need you desperately.’ And when my friend comes through the bedroom door, I turn my head toward her and give her a smile sent straight from heaven. It’s not mine. It’s God’s. So,” she said gesturing toward her paralyzed legs, “whatever joy you see today was hard won this morning.”
When she wrote in her book of that incident she said, “I have learned that the weaker we are, the more we need to lean on God; and the more we lean on God, the stronger we discover him to be.” (Joni Eareckson-Tada, Joy Hard Won, Decision, March 2000, p. 12)
So what does all of that mean for jars of clay like us? People in whom God lives, for whom and through whom God cares, to whom and through whom God gives? What does it mean to be a faith community in whom God lives, to whom and through whom God cares, to whom and through whom God gives?
It means that whatever we have been or done as individuals and as a faith community is history. It’s all memory. Our days of past failure and glory are in the books… they are a matter of record.
In our culture things live on through sequels… In 1997 J. K. Rowling published her first Harry Potter book. Her readers lived in anticipation of the publication of the next book in the series until in 2007, the seventh and final Harry Potter book was published. Novelist Robert Ludlam has written the Bourne Trilogy: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum. My suspicion is that James Bourne will be back… in the final scene of the third story, James Bourne has recovered from his fall from a building top into the harbor and is swimming up from the murky depths toward the light. His identity is behind him, his supremacy is behind him, and his ultimatum is behind him… what comes next in the life of James Bourne? Only time and the creative juices of Robert Ludlam can tell.
What does God have in mind for each of us and for our church in the days, months, and years that stretch out before us? What will unfold in the sequel that is the ongoing saga of each of our lives… and our church?
I don’t know how the story will play out but I hope that it is a story of how God used ordinary, everyday jars of clay people and that God used an ordinary, everyday jar of clay church.
I began the month talking about good china dishes and everyday dishes. We have seen beautiful examples of fine pieces we keep in china hutches and cabinets… and we have seen examples of pieces made to be used everyday.
My sense is that we were never meant to be china cabinet people and our church was never meant to be a china cabinet church where precious pieces could be safely stowed away out of harm’s way. The church is more like a working kitchen and we are more like well-worn earthen vessels and jars of clay that are filled again and again with the life and love of Christ to then pour out to a hungry and thirsty world. (Bryan Wilkerson, “Unbreakable?” PreachingToday.com)
I guess the question is not so much how God wants to use us as it is, will we let God use us.
Conclusion: We must be willing to be weak in order to be strong.
• Since I know it is for Christ’s good, I am quite content with my weakness… for when I am weak, then I am strong. II Corinthians 12:10
Perhaps the best way thing clay pots can do is begin each day with a prayer, “Lord, I don’t have the strength to face this routine one more time. I have no resources. I don’t have a smile, but you do. May I have yours? God, I need you desperately.” And then we turn our faces toward the world and give it a smile sent straight from heaven.
The most important thing clay pots must remember is that the weaker we are, the more we need to lean on God; and the more we lean on God, the stronger we discover him to be… and the more everyday useful we will be.
