2 Cor. 11b-12a

Intro

The Suffering Servant of Christ

Background—Paul is comparing resumes with the false apostles

Paul has admitted and continues to lament that this competition must occur, because it appears most in keeping with the worldly folly of prideful boasting

Yet, he is willing to so engage or two reasons:

The Corinthians believers are too immature to discern the between the legitimate ministry of the Apostle Paul and deceptive designs of the false teachers.

(HAVE SOMEONE READ) —>What is the mark of children? What is the lesson for Corinth? What are the lessons for us?

The immaturity of the Corinthian church forces Paul to stoop to defend his ministry to them in ways that he feels base and distasteful. Why does he do so?

The stakes are too high! (11:12-15, 11:19-20)

Such false teachers have demonic designs for the church

Their aim is enslavement of the church—to devour it!

These are like the charlatans who say that they can cure cancer, and encourage people to stop going to chemotherapy

The desperate family will not discover the ruse until it is too late, and until the cancer has spread until it is thoroughly incurable and absolutely deadly

People do not recognize such charlatans because they are desperate—the Christians fail to recognize false teaching because they are immature, weak in the Word

-So Paul defends his ministry-and the proof he says— (antique roadshow example) is in his suffering for the gospel

The disciple partakes in the suffering of Christ

Have we misplaced our hope in politics and our heritage as a “Christian nation”

Do we have a theology of suffering?

Strength Perfected in Weakness

-the vision and the thorn

-we lionize the heroes of the faith and minimize the frailty of their humanity

-it is in the humble admission of our weakness that the power of God reigns in us!

-the goal for every believer is that when the world looks at you they see the image of God

-familial resemblence

-which means that we must desire others to see the greatness of our God in us, not promote our own greatness.

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-so many people are using their faith to exalt themselves—”faith as fashion”

committing to the glory of God as the purpose of your life means that you are not daunted by your human weakness.

Noah, Abraham, Moses, Rahab, Naomi, King David, Isaiah, Peter, the disciples, Paul, Timothy

Your inadequacy and mine does not disqualify us from doing the work of God in this world, our weakness merely serves to more brilliantly display the truth that HE IS STRONGER!!!

Israel made the mistake of wanting a king, impressive in terms of outward appearance

The honesty and humility of our strength in our profound weakness boldly declares that our God reigns!