Vulnerable Greatness

I want to ask you to reflect on a question as we begin today, and that is: What does greatness look like?

How would you identify greatness? How do you recognize it?

In different fields it takes different appearances.

Painful as it is to admit, at the moment, greatness looks from an athletic perspective kind of like the Los Angeles Dodgers.

But greatness did look like the Chicago Cubs of 2016.

I just have to remind myself that it happened in my lifetime. It may be all downhill from here, but I got to experience Chicago Cubs greatness.

If your memory goes back a little longer, greatness looked like the San Francisco Giants of 2014, 2012 and 2010.

If your memory goes back a little farther than that, greatness looks like the Chicago Cubs of 1908. It only took 108 years for the Cubs to experience greatness after that 1908 championship.

We have different pictures of different greatness in different fields.

We have corporate examples of greatness like Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia.

We have financial examples of greatness like Warren Buffet.

There are artistic examples of greatness, and we all carry around a sense of how we recognize that, how we identify it.

The question is what does spiritual greatness look like?

Or to put it another way, so it sounds less religious — what does greatness of spirit look like?

We tend to think that greatness is easy to identify; however, greatness in the kingdom of God looks very different.

That’s why it’s possible for God to come to earth and not be recognized.

Greatness in the kingdom of God looks very different than it often looks in this world, and if you’re not very careful you’ll miss it.

There’s a passage of Scripture in 2 Corinthians where the apostle Paul has a fundamental disagreement with some of his opposition over how you recognize the presence and work of God — over what constitutes spiritual greatness.

The apostle Paul’s opponents are impressive guys, they wield a lot of power, they’re self-promoters, their greatness is obvious and intimidating.

Paul, by contrast, is not an impressive guy. He suffers often and he suffers deeply. His missions sometimes end in failure.

Instead of flaunting his authority, he lives a life of servanthood. He lives a kind of vulnerable greatness.

I want to show you a particular behavior that characterizes the approach to greatness of Paul’s opponents. I want to look through a few verses with you, and I want you to be looking for one word. This is a word that describes the behavior of Paul’s opponents and is very much alive in our world today.

This is 2 Corinthians 10:13. Paul says:

We, however, will not boast beyond proper limits, but will confine our boasting to the sphere of service God himself has assigned to us, (2 Corinthians 10:13)

Then down to verse 15:

Neither do we go beyond our limits by boasting of work done by others. Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our sphere of activity among you will greatly expand, (2 Corinthians 10:15)

Verse 16:

so that we can preach the gospel in the regions beyond you. For we do not want to boast about work already done in someone else’s territory. (2 Corinthians 10:16)

Verse 17:

Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. (2 Corinthians 10:17)

Now, 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 12:

And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. (2 Corinthians 11:12)

Verse 13:

For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. (2 Corinthians 11:13)

Alright, I’m sure you’ve picked up on what the word is.

It’s the word boast — to boast.

Boasting is one of the prominent characteristics of the people who are opposed to the apostle Paul.

The point Paul is making as he talks about this behavior is not just that they’re braggy people.

The point is that they’re advocating and modeling an understanding of greatness — spiritual greatness in particular — that is utterly opposed to the Gospel and that will destroy the community.

The truth is, from the perspective of the kingdom of God, the greatest people are the least boastful — the least invested in self-promotion and trying to control other people’s impressions of them.

I see this boastfulness in myself sometimes, and I have to tell you, it is an ugly thing. I don’t like it.

Okay, so that’s what Paul’s up against.

Chapter 11, take a look at the first verse.

I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness. Yes, please put up with me! I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. (2 Corinthians 11:1)

Now, Paul is going to come back to this foolishness business. He’s going to have to do some extraordinary things to try to get through to the people here, so he says at the beginning, “I’m going to do some foolish things in this chapter. I’m going to say things that sound foolish.”

Then he says why.

I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. (2 Corinthians 11:2)

The idea here is someone who’s purely devoted, who’s wholly devoted.

But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. ( 2 Corinthians 11:3-4)

In other words, this is going on in Corinth.

Then he says this about his opponents:

I do not think I am in the least inferior to those “super-apostles.” (2 Corinthians 11:5)

They’re setting themselves up as these super apostles, examples of greatness.

Paul says:

I may indeed be untrained as a speaker, but I do have knowledge. We have made this perfectly clear to you in every way. (2 Corinthians 11:6)

I want to stop there for right now.

Paul is saying don’t be taken in by these super apostles with their superficial signs of glory and greatness.

He says what’s at stake is the true Gospel, the true Jesus, but he’s not always easy to recognize.

A friend from Blue Oaks was telling me about how his five year old son is into ninja shows these days.

He’s particularly drawn to shows where boys who, to the untrained eye, look like average, ordinary kids. They look weak.

But the truth about them is that they are possessors of amazing strength because they’re ninjas.

The plot of most of these shows is the same. There are figures who look enormously impressive, strong, sleek, quick and boastful, and then there are these puny little half-pints, and when they fight each other, by all appearances it looks like the contest should be a no-brainer.

But by the end of the show the greatest strength turns out to reside in what look like the weakest vessels.

My friend was telling me that his son is so captivated by these guys that he spends most of his free time, which being a five-year-old he has a lot of, applying kind of free-style martial arts to inanimate objects and occasionally to family members.

Then he told me he was on a hike with his son on the ridge, and when they got to the top he let his son run around the clearing, and he was talking to the parents of another child, a little three-year-old girl that was up there.

And his son in typical fashion started attacking this large tree in the clearing. Just ‘Hai-ah!’ was kind of his thing.

He’d kick it and spin around and so on.

So my friend was talking to the parents of this three-year-old, told them that he’s a Christian and attends a church in Pleasanton and so on.

The little girl was watching his son but didn’t like him attacking the tree — apparently she was an environmentalist of some sort — so she stuck her tongue out at him, and that didn’t faze him at all.

So she went up to him as he was attacking the tree and pushed him, physically pushed him, and he took two steps, jumped up, turned around 360 degrees in the air and came down ‘Hai-ah!’

The little three-year-old girl turned around and ran back to her parents so fast it would make your head spin.

They turned and looked at my friend and said, ‘So you go to a church, huh?’

He said, ‘Yeah, it’s a small, old-fashioned church. You probably never heard of it.’

Sometimes the greatest strength takes root in the weakest-looking vessels.

There is in Paul, see, a totally different understanding of what spiritual greatness is about than there is in these so-called super apostles.

So he’s devoting now this whole section to trying to get people to understand what spiritual greatness is really about.

Take a look at verses 7-9:

Was it a sin for me to lower myself in order to elevate you by preaching the gospel of God to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by receiving support from them so as to serve you.

And when I was with you and needed something, I was not a burden to anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied what I needed. (2 Corinthians 11:7-9)

Now, here’s what’s going on.

In Paul’s day one of the signs of a great speaker, a speaker that was held in high esteem, was that they were able to command high fees. They were able to get a lot of money.

They had a saying along the lines of “you get what you pay for,” and so among people who took the role of teachers in that society, it was a matter of pride, a matter of status to get paid a lot of money.

Now, the super apostles that Paul talks about in verses 5 and 6, the super apostles that come to Corinth to proclaim this other gospel, this other Jesus, this is part of what they were into.

Take a look at chapter 11:20. Paul now is talking about his opponents in Corinth, these preachers of another gospel, these super apostles. He says to the Corinthians:

In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you

That is when someone becomes authoritarian and legalistic.

or exploits you or takes advantage of you

The idea here is that these super apostles have come in and they were exploiting the people of Corinth for personal financial gain.

or puts on airs or slaps you in the face. (2 Corinthians 11:20)

He’s talking about an extreme insult.

Paul wanted to be free of all of that. He wanted to be able to proclaim the Gospel with no strings attached.

The Gospel has some painful things to say, particularly to people who are addicted to their wealth, so Paul took no money from the church at all when he was there.

He took money from other churches, churches outside of Corinth, but when he was there, because he wanted the freedom to express the truth boldly, he took no money from the people as the church was being planted.

But this was being misinterpreted as a sign of Paul’s insignificance by his opponents.

They were saying, “This shows that he really doesn’t have anything to offer.”

So Paul says in verse 21, after giving this kind of catalogue of the behavior of these super apostles — and he’s saying this, you’ll see, with great irony:

To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that! (2 Corinthians 11:21)

You’ll understand what he’s saying here is you need to start thinking through again what is weakness and what is strength. You need to think it through again.

Paul is saying that he refuses to be about self-promotion.

To a large extent Paul has been freed from that, and so you’ve got to ask yourself the question as you look at Paul and you look at his opponents — where do you find yourself?

How easy is it for you to do something and not have to get the credit for it?

To what extent has your life become about something bigger than just you?

In verse 16 Paul is coming back to this idea of saying something foolish here.

I repeat: Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do, then tolerate me just as you would a fool, so that I may do a little boasting. In this self-confident boasting I am not talking as the Lord would, but as a fool.

Since many are boasting in the way the world does, I too will boast. You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise! (2 Corinthians 11:16-19)

Then he goes through these two verses that we’ve already read.

Then down to Verse 23. Again Paul is trying to help people get some distinction between himself and these super apostles. Are they ministers of Christ?

Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.

Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move.

I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers.

I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. (2 Corinthians 11:23-27)

Ever hear of a book called “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day?”

It’s just like Paul — the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad career.

What’s going on here? Is he just fed up with it all and decided he’s just going to complain for a while?

Look back at verse 23. He says:

Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. (2 Corinthians 11:23)

You remember if you were here last week, one of the things Paul said in chapter 10, verse 12 is we don’t dare classify or compare ourselves.

He says, “I’m not into comparison.”

Here he says, “Are they servants? I’m a better one.”

What’s he doing?

It looks like he’s going to play their game. It looks like he’s going to compare himself to them and show his superiority. That’s why he says, “Let me talk like a fool for a little bit.”

But here’s the twist. Their boastings are about how great they are. They’re great speakers, they have impressive presence, they have powerful gifts — these are the things that reading between the lines through this letter to the church at Corinth, these are the claims that are being made.

Paul says, “Okay, let me boast.” What does he boast about?

He boasts about suffering, he boasts about pain, he boasts about failure.

He says if what you’re looking for is the glamorous, triumphant, success-crowned ministry, take a look at this. “I’ve been beaten, flogged, imprisoned, stoned, shipwrecked, hungry, thirsty and exhausted.”

Then he concludes the chapter, verses 32 and 33, with this story of humiliation.

In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands. (2 Corinthians 11:32-33)

He says, “You hear these stories of these guys going from one triumphal ministry to another to another. Let me tell you about my triumph. I had to escape from a city in a basket.”

If you are a Christ follower, it means you may no longer measure your life by visible triumphs.

Sometimes success is just being faithful in hardship and apparent failure. Sometimes that what it is.

Paul goes on to talk about another kind of weakness, and this is a kind of weakness that is an inescapable part of choosing to live a life of love.

There’s another kind of weakness; it’s part of choosing to live a life of love.

Verse 28:

Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? (2 Corinthians 11:28)

He’s talking here about another kind of weakness; it’s the kind that’s involved in loving.

In the early part of the twentieth century, one of the greatest sociologists in the United States was a guy named Willard Waller.

Can you imagine parents with the last name Waller naming their son Willard?

But that’s not the worst of it. Anyone want to guess where Willard Waller came from?

Walla Walla, Washington. Willard Waller of Walla Walla, Washington.

You can look it up. I’m not making it up. It’s the absolute truth.

He made this very interesting observation.

He said among human beings there is an inverse relationship between love and power.

That is, in any relationship between two human beings, it is the person who has the greatest love that has the least power — the person with the greatest love has the least power.

Quick show of hands on this one. How many of you have ever been in a dating relationship or a pre-dating relationship or you hoped to be in a dating relationship with a person where that person was less interested in you than you were in that person?

Quick show of hands.

Alright. Look around. Just keep them up for a second, would you? Just keep them up.

I want you to look around because people not raising their hands have a psychological illness that we may have time to diagnose a little later on.

Question: If you’ve ever been in a relationship where you are more interested in the other person than that person was in you, did you enjoy it?

No.

Why not?

Because the other person held all the power, because they called the shots.

If I’m in a relationship and the other person is deeply attached to me but I’m not deeply attached to the other person, I can call the shots.

If I want the relationship to be over, I can walk away unscathed. I’m not going to get hurt.

If they don’t do what I want, I can just leave. I hold the power because I don’t care.

Look at any couple where one person wants to get married and the other person doesn’t. It’s the one who doesn’t want to get married that holds the power.

In a relationship, it’s the person with the deepest love that’s most vulnerable. The person with the least love has the most power.

Now, this is the kind of weakness that Paul is claiming in verses 28 and 29.

“I have such a love for the church,” Paul says, “that I’m never free of it.”

It’s part of Paul’s cross that he has to bear.

“When people stumble, when they turn away from Christ and his church, when they get it wrong, when they hurt each other, each time it happens, I die a little bit inside,” Paul says. “I live with that every day.”

You see, to love is to be vulnerable and weak.

Understand I don’t mean weak in the sense of having a weak will or being a pushover or a doormat.

I mean weakness in the strong sense. I mean you might want to put quotation marks around it or call it apparent weakness.

I mean weakness in the strong sense of putting yourself in the place where you may have to endure suffering and pain, but you do it because loving is more important than avoiding pain.

You do it because loving is more important than avoiding pain.

This brings us to the critical verse of this whole chapter, which is verse 30, where Paul says:

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. (2 Corinthians 11:30)

Understand now he’s gone to a deep level. He’s doing the absolute opposite of what his opponents call boasting.

“If I must boast, if that is the only language that will get your attention,” he says, “I will boast of the things that show my weakness.”

Now, I want to be very, very clear about this.

When Paul says he boasts about his weakness, he’s not saying, “I celebrate my incompetence.”

There is nothing particularly God-honoring about incompetence for its own sake.

When Paul says, “I will boast of the things that show my weakness,” he’s not saying, “I boast about my emotional brokenness and neuroses.”

Certainly we’ve all got them, and this is a whole room full of neurotics.

Just sneak a glance at the person next to you. That person is neurotic about something. We all have them, and we all need to be open and we all need to seek healing.

We need to be in a place where there is great freedom and great permission, but that is not what Paul is talking about when he speaks of weakness here.

Let me ask you to reflect on a question for a moment.

In the relationship between God and human beings — lets reflect on this — in the relationship between God and human beings, who holds the power?

See, we usually think of God holding the power, and, of course, in many ways he does.

He’s ultimately the judge of humankind.
He’s the lord over life and death.
He’s the giver and the taker of life.

In many ways he does, but there is this glorious sense in which God has chosen weakness.

He has chosen to love us with the deepest kind of love, the love which is not willing to let go, not even when hanging on involves deep pain.

God could have washed his hands of us. God could have said, “You’re not going to hurt me. I don’t need this pain.”

But God did not. God chose to be the one who loves most deeply and therefore the one in all the universe who suffers most deeply.

So there is no one who is weak, and God does not suffer with our weakness. There is no one who stumbles without God feeling the pain of the fall.

When people, when you and I say to God:

“I reject you”
or “I don’t have time for you”
or “I have more important things in my life than you”
or “I refuse to follow you’

We do not say these things to a callused and toughened and hardened being. We say it to a heart that is more tender with love than the most tender human heart we have ever known.

Look over at 2 Corinthians 13:3-4. Paul is talking here about the people desiring proof that Christ is speaking in Paul. 2 Corinthians 13, the last half of verse 3:

He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you

He is speaking about Jesus.

He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. (2 Corinthians 13:3-4)

Paul says Jesus was “crucified in weakness.”

What does he mean, Jesus was “crucified in weakness”?

He means that Jesus embraced suffering and pain, remained on the cross even when people taunted him.

Do you remember what they said? — “He saved others. He cannot save himself.”

Paul says what they didn’t realize was that when they thought he was at his weakest, they were, in fact, seeing the ultimate demonstration of the power of God.

Christ followers will enter into Jesus’ same weakness. We will be weak in him, and we will thereby live with him in the power of God.

Again, you’ll understand I’m not talking now about being an enabler or a doormat or allowing people to continue to live in evil or allowing destructive behavior to go on without confrontation.

Please understand this is not about that.

Some of you today, like Paul, face relationships where to continue to love will involve pain, and you’re tempted to bail.

The way of Christ is to choose the pursuit of love over the avoidance of pain. The way of Christ is to choose the pursuit of love over the avoidance of pain.

The pain of love — there are times when it becomes very real, and this is one of those times.

I have something I’d like to share with you and then we’ll close for today.

I have a very good friend that I’ve told you about before. His name is Ron Jones.

He was in my wedding. We were best friends for 20+ years.

He was a good pastor, and husband, and father and friend.

There were times when he would teach and it was like this veil parted, and all of a sudden you didn’t know if you were in California or in Jerusalem. All of a sudden you’d find yourself saying, “It’s all really true. It really is.”

The reason I share this is — when Ron Jones died it hurt more than any hurt that I’ve experienced in life.

Because the truth is that in a fallen world, love is a setup for pain. To love someone means to suffer.

But that’s not all it means. It also means great joy and great fun and great growth and many other things. But it also means to suffer. You can’t love someone without suffering.

But the alternative, which is to remain distant and invulnerable, the alternative is death.

So Paul says, “If I got to boast… then I will boast in the weakness that marked the life of Christ. I’ll boast in the cross.”