2 Corinthians Overview

Over the next 3 months we are taking a journey through a book of the New Testament and the preaching team have decided on 2 Corinthians. Even though we call 2 Corinthians a book of the Bible, it is actually a letter written by the Apostle Paul to a church in Corinth, which is in Greece. In Paul’s time, they would’ve heard the whole letter read out in its entirety (we aren’t doing that!). But today we are going to be the eagle, soaring high above the whole book looking at its main theme. Then in the following weeks other preachers will be down on the ground looking more closely at small sections of the book.

I want to encourage you to come every week, don’t miss out on a part of the book. I also want to encourage you to read or listen to 2 Corinthians as we go through this series, allow it to continue to speak to you during the week. [NOTETAKE?] Pray here.

Can you remember a time in your lives when you felt weak? I want you to think about that time right now. Hold it in your mind. It could be something small - like being unable to open a jar. But it could be something as big as a serious illness to make us feel weak. Perhaps our time of weakness wasn’t physical, maybe it was sin that made us feel weak. Or maybe looking at other people’s greatness compared to our own makes us feel weak. Humans are fragile beings.

My family have lived in Madagascar for over a year now. By God’s grace we feel very settled, but there are still many situations that show our weakness. Take the Malagasy language for example. Many people kindly say to me: “Efa mahay be teny gasy ianao”. But when I’m in a conversation with lots of Malagasy, and they are speaking really fast, I feel weak. I can’t keep up with them. Or sometimes I want to communicate a simple thing like buying something at the market, and my language fails me, there is the weakness. Even right now talking to you. Naina is such a wonderful provision from God, but I don’t want him here because I want to talk to you directly. But I can’t, my language is too weak. Enga anie, tsy ho ela.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul feels the same way I do. [SLIDE ONE] In chapter 10, Paul believed the Corinthians thought this of him: “his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account”. In chapter 11, he complains that: “I am unskilled in speaking”. But this is the apostle Paul! He was one of the greatest missionaries the world has ever known. Vital to the spread of the early church. The man who planted many churches across Europe and the Middle East. And yet, in 2 Corinthians, all Paul talks about are his many weaknesses. Not only does he confess his weaknesses, in chapter 12 he says this: [SLIDE TWO] “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses”. He praises God for his weakness. Think about what I asked you at the beginning, that time in your life when you felt weak. Can you boast about it? Can you rejoice in it?

The message of 2 Corinthians is that yes you can boast in that weakness that you are thinking about. That weakness caused by temptation and sin. That weakness you feel when you suffer. You can praise God for it.

[SLIDE THREE] Paul praises God for his weakness…”so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” He accepts his weakness, so that God can move in him with strength.

God strengthens us in our weakness, that’s the message of this book. God gives us strength in our weakness. His power is made perfect in weakness.

Paul outlines how this central theme works out in 2 types of relationship, the believer’s relationship with God, and then the Christian’s relationship with others (Up and Out).

This letter that Paul writes to the Corinthians shows humanity in four stages of weakness and how God’s strength can work through those weaknesses:

Firstly, Paul uses the image of a jar of clay to describe a person (produce the mug). Of course, we are created in God’s image, but just like this cup Paul reminds us that we are creatures made by God from the dust of the earth. We are fragile beings, if I were to drop this cup, it would break. [SLIDE FOUR] Paul also highlights in 2 Corinthians that suffering weakens us. All of us, believers in Jesus or non-believers, experience hurt, pain, anxiety, all kinds of suffering. Paul as well, here are just a few things that Paul suffered: “afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger”.

Suffering creates the chips and stains that ruin the beauty of the jar. Another weakness that chips and stains our jar of clay is sin. Paul is worried that people in the church have done things wrong and not said sorry to God. [SLIDE FIVE]“I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced.” Even in his own life Paul saw the poisonous effects of sin. The final weakness of our jar of clay is death (break the mug). The cracks and chips of sin and suffering is too much for us to bear. Eventually, the jar of clay breaks completely.

Praise God that that is not the end of the story. Praise God that he, perfect, sinless, without suffering, dominion over death, chose to become a jar of clay. That Jesus, God the Son became a fragile baby born in a stable, would grow up in poverty and live amongst sinners and suffering. He knows what we go through. But he also saves us from our weakness. Because when he died on the cross, death tried to break his jar of clay, but death couldn’t do it. There were no chips, no cracks, no sin to spoil his cup, and so death had to give Jesus up because only sin leads to death. And so Jesus rose again from the dead and changed the world. And has changed our lives.

2 Corinthians shows us that Christ’s death and resurrection means that God’s strength can overcome any of our weaknesses, and this is why we can boast our weakness. Starting with the biggest, God brings life through death in Jesus Christ. [SLIDE SIX] We carry in our bodies, in our jar of clay now the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. He shines his light into our darkness. He has forgiven our sin. If we suffer, Paul promises that God will comfort us: [SLIDE SEVEN] “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too”. And our jars of clay, they are now filled with treasure. Riches beyond your wildest dreams. Here is some of that treasure from 2 Corinthians:

[SLIDE EIGHT] God has “given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee”. The Holy Spirit is our Helper, the Comforter, the Advocate for our lives, and he’s inside the hearts of every believer in Christ. Here’s some more treasure, you may suffer now, but Paul says that suffering is light and momentary, because the treasure inside you is an inheritance for eternity in heaven with God, it is beyond all comparison. Here’s some more treasure inside of you, God has even remade your broken, stained jar into a work of art: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation”.

God strengthens us in our weakness, that is the first relationship highlighted in 2 Corinthians. He brings life through death. Forgiveness of sin. Comfort through suffering and restoration of our broken vessels.

But there is a second relationship that Paul focuses on. We need to remember that he is writing a letter to other Christians. He spent 18 months with the Corinthian church on his missionary travels and 2 Corinthians is actually the fourth letter that Paul sent to them. He loves this church deeply, and this letter shows Paul’s heart of a pastor. So he also wants to focus on our relationship towards other people. When God empowers us in our weakness, it isn’t just for ourselves. Despite our weaknesses, God wants to minister to his people through his people using his strength. For example, say you have many candles on a birthday cake and you want to light them all. It’s better to light one of the candles, and then use that candle to light all the others. Do you see? Through the power of God in us, we can give strength to the weak. As he gives light to our birthday candle, he then uses us to light all the others. And Paul writes about three strengths that we can give to others around us: generosity, humility and the gospel.

First, generosity. During the time of this letter, the Jerusalem church was very poor, there was a famine in the area and they needed strength from elsewhere. So, in 2 Corinthians, Paul calls on the church to help the Jerusalem church out. [SLIDE NINE] He says to them: “This service is not supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God”. Do you see. It is out of gratitude for how God has strengthened us that we then give generously to help people out. Now we know that as a nation Madagascar is financially weak compared to many others, it is fair to say that La Porte has often been the Jerusalem church, and we have needed to be strengthened by others in this way. And it’s ok for us as a church to ask for support from other churches to help in the work of kingdom building. But, search your hearts, La Porte. Are there people, churches and causes that we can help with our resources? I’m so grateful that many of you have a 2 Corinthians attitude in the way that you financially strengthen Antonio and Perle or buy the goods for the Soa Lala mission. Continue to give generously out of gratitude for God.

Secondly, we can strengthen others with humility. Paul loves the Corinthians, but he’s sad because they haven’t always been listening to his words. Not because his words are special, but because God is speaking through him. You can almost see the tears running down Paul’s face and dripping onto the letter as he writes it. It is his most personal letter. But he’s also worried because of some people in the Corinthian church are promoting themselves rather than God. [SLIDE TEN] They call themselves “super-apostles”, and they speak very well, they are professional, and they have letters of recommendation. They seem really strong don’t they? But Paul accuses them of being “false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” [2 Cor 11:13]. He sees them for what they really are, relying on their own strength, their own skills rather than God’s strength. And that makes them the weakest people of them all. Instead, Paul calls on these super-apostles in 2 Corinthians to repent. He urges them and the church to be humble. We can bring strength to others by humbling them. Sometimes people think that humility is a form of weakness, but that is not true. Accepting our weakness is part of humility, but it is so that the Almighty strength of God can empower us instead. Pride is still a great sin in the global church today, we need to be alert and willing to rebuke those in the church who puff themselves up and give glory to themselves. [Vijesh story?]

That is why I hate the prosperity gospel. Because it tells you that it’s all about you: you have to have more faith, don’t doubt, declare it, be positive, don’t get discouraged and everything gets better. That is not real life. 2 Corinthians shows that even the most devout Christian men and women suffer, are tempted, and discouraged by other people. The true gospel does not tell you that you are strong the true gospel declares that he is strong. That Jesus is Almighty God and that in his love he wants to connect with you, and to empower you. Not because you are strong, but because you are weak. In the Bible, does God work through Reuben, the eldest, strongest son, or Joseph the youngest? God make a covenant with David, the shepherd boy. Did Jesus choose the Pharisees, the rich men, the teachers of the law? No, he chose 12 teenagers, fishermen, tax collectors, terrorists. It didn’t matter who they were, because each one had the strength of God in them to do amazing things.

So we can empower others with generosity and humility. Finally, Paul calls on us to strengthen weak people with the glorious message of the gospel. [SLIDE ELEVEN] Before Jesus, everyone lived under the old covenant given under Moses. It meant that we had to try and live a righteous life in our own strength. I hope you’re getting the message by now, that our own strength doesn’t work! But in 2 Corinthians, Paul shows us that we now live under the New Covenant through the work of Jesus so we now have Christ’s righteousness, we live under his strength. But not only that. Paul says that the church, us, we are now ministers of this new covenant. We have a responsibility to strengthen weak and weary people by showing them new covenant life. Life in Christ. Paul also shows that we are strengthened because Jesus has reconciled us to God. We were weak because we were far from God, but Jesus has brought us back. And again, Paul says that we now have the ministry of reconciliation, it is our job to tell weak people far from God that they can be reconciled to him through the work of Jesus.

Friends, the letter of 2 Corinthians tells us that it is good for us to accept that we are weak. Because if we think we are strong we deceive ourselves, because we are not strong enough. Not to defeat sin, not to come back from death, not to overcome the suffering in this life. But He is. Jesus is strong enough and he showed it, and he has put his strength in all those who believe and call on his name. He has given us life, forgiveness, comfort and eternity – what strength is that! We can help anyone with that strength. We can overcome anything with that strength.