2 Corinthians chapter 12. 2 Corinthians 12. Join me in reading
verse number 9 please. And He, speaking of our Lord,
said unto me, speaking unto Paul, My grace is sufficient for thee,
for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Now we looked at
this verse in last week's messages considering in the question who
it was that was sufficient. Who was it that was sufficient
for such things? But today I'd like to consider
the very last part of this statement. This last statement part where
it says, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly,
therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities than the power
of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in
infirmities and reproaches and necessities and persecutions
and distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I
strong. Now as I read that, as I read
that part of the statement last week, my mind was going in the
direction of who it is that's sufficient. But when I actually read it to
you, that last part jumped out at me. How can anything I do, how can
anything I do make the strength of God perfect? Everything about the God of Scriptures
is perfect in every way already. There is no blemish in Him. All
that He has done, all that He is doing this very moment, and
all that He can and will do in the future can only be perfect. He's as holy as holy can be. Perfect in every way. This is
why free will worship is wrong. Free will worship says that Christ
went to the cross and it wasn't perfectly done. There's still
something else that others have to do. No, salvation is of the
Lord. Period. As I said in the Bible
study, that's the best message any of us can have to anybody
who ever asked. What is your faith? Oh, you're
a Christian, you go to church? Well, what do you believe in? Oh, oh, that's what you're doing
Sunday, you're going to church. Okay, what kind of church do
you go to? If you can't say anything else
at all, You can say this, salvation is of the Lord. Period. That's it. What a testimony we
have to tell the world. Salvation is of our Savior. If
it wasn't for Him, I wouldn't be saved at all. If it wasn't
for Him, I would continue on the path that I deserve, and
that's the path to damnation. God is holy, so holy that He
can't even look upon sin. Yet He who knew no sin was made
sin, that you and I would be made righteous in Him. Go back
to Romans chapter 9 if you would please. The ninth chapter of Romans. And may our great Savior be pleased
to give us an understanding of His Word. In the ninth verse that we just
read in 2 Corinthians, He said, My strength is made perfect.
That word perfect in verse 9 is defined as this, complete, finished,
fulfilled, accomplished. proved. In other words, His strength,
you could say, is proved in our weakness. The very fact that
we are so weak, we can't even take a breath without Him, gives
us just a little indication, a little demonstration of the
perfection of Him, of His strength. It proves to you and I, because
we know who the Lord is, we've been given that blessed, eye-opening
life that only Christ can give. The ability to see His truths,
that He, the Creator of all things, is the Provider of all things.
Without Him, we wouldn't even have air to breathe. He created
air. He created everything that we
can see, and everything that we can't see. We've gotten pretty
smart, haven't we? We've got telescopes now that
look way out. Have you ever seen some of those
pictures? They're actually pretty cool if you think about it, but
I'm not so sure how accurate all of them are. He created all
that, though. Every bit of that. Even the telescopes that can
see it. Accomplished. Because I am so weak in the flesh, I need the strength of God perfected,
accomplished. And that's exactly what He does.
That's exactly what He did on that cross 2,000 years ago. He
accomplished my salvation for me because I couldn't finish When He hung on that cross
and He cried out, it is finished, His strength was perfected. It was accomplished. It was finished. As we saw in our Bible study
this morning, God's people rest in Him, in His accomplishments,
in His works. We put all of our works that
we used to do aside. We fight the desire to try to
do any works of our own now. I was telling them in the Bible
study, it was very difficult for me when I first started coming
to church to put all that aside. But as the Lord continues to
grow and I learn more about Him, As He continues to do a work
in me, He gives me more and more confidence to rest in Him. Pastor Gene had gotten to a point
where he fully trusted in the Lord, I pray the day will be
soon when I can be there also. And I know I will, even though now I fight the flesh. Another point that we made last
week from Philippians 121, it said, for me to live is Christ. In all that we do, we openly
acknowledge our Savior is the Lord. We do not hide our faith. Not a person I know, there's
not a person I know that doesn't know me and the Lord that I follow. and of the Lord that I follow.
When I declare salvation is of the Lord, they know that that Lord is the
ruler of all things. He's sovereign over all things.
There was nothing for John to do. By that declaration, I'm
declaring to you, there's nothing for me to do. It's all been done
in Him. It's complete in Him. How many times have you heard
somebody, well, I started following the Lord back in 2003 when I
went up to the pastor and did a little prayer. Or, I was saved
in whatever date you want to take. Or, I did this, or I did
that. Salvation is of the Lord puts
all that away. There's no other answer to it.
There's nothing else to do. Salvation is of the Lord. Plain
and simple. In our weakness, His strength
is made perfect. Our Lord does not do anything
in hiding. All that He has, all that He
is, can be seen openly. Look at the creation around us.
Look at the way the birds feed. You know these chickens out here?
Nobody feeds those. Have you ever seen chicken so
fat? They don't put any food out there. They just put them
in a pen, and the next thing you know, the Lord's been feeding
them ever since. We can see it in the creation.
We can see it openly. But men choose not to see it. For we are blinded by our very
nature. In the third chapter, verse 19
of John, and this is the condemnation. This is what condemns men to
hell. That light has come into the
world, and men loved darkness rather than light. Why? Why would men love darkness? Because their deeds were evil,
and the light exposes their evil. They don't want to see the sovereignty
of God. People like their free will.
My aunt, who I've shared with you many times, sweetest lady
I've ever seen, just went crazy, you will not take my free will
from me, and poked me in the chest, just like that. Probably
not as ugly as I was. She's a lot prettier than I am.
But you know what I'm saying? You ever had a friend or a relative
like that? They want their free will. You
will not take my free will from me. That's mine. It's mine to
do with what I want. Darkness they love rather than
light, because it reveals their evil deeds. Do you have one of today's bulletins
with you? I'd like you to open it up to
the inside middle page. And I don't do this to embarrass
you, Bill. I hope you don't take this as an embarrassment. This
is a blessing to me, folks. I've been telling Bill he should
be writing for a long time. And as you may have noticed in
the last couple of weeks, we've had two articles that the Lord
has laid up on his heart to write. Join me in reading this, will
you, from Joshua 24, 15. Choose ye this day. And if it seem evil unto you,
serve the Lord. Choose you this day whom you
will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that
were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites
in whose land ye dwell. But as for me and my house, we
will serve the Lord." Bill writes, if Adam in his perfect
perfection did not choose God over Eve, but ate the forbidden
fruit and plunged all of mankind into rebellion against God, then
how can an imperfect man choose God? In Isaiah 64, seven through
nine, and there is none that calleth upon the name that stirreth
up himself to take hold of thee, for thou hast hid thy face from
us and has consumed us because of our iniquities. And the very
Lord Jesus Christ said in John 15, 16, You have not chosen me,
but I have chosen you, and ordained you that you should go and bring
forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever
you shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it to you.
You see, salvation is a gift given by the will of God, not
the commandment by the whims of man. In Ephesians 2, 8 and
9, for by grace are you saved through faith, and not of yourselves.
It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. You
see, man will always choose that which sounds, looks, or feels
right in their own minds. And they will disregard that
which God declares pleases Himself. Salvation is not your decision
to choose God, but it is God's good pleasure to choose you. And if chosen, you will serve
Him, not He, you." See what I'm saying about the article there,
folks? This is our Lord showing His strength by choosing us because
we are too weak to choose Him. We're just flesh. There is no
strength in us. I can do it! I can do it! I can
get this done! No, you can't. If you get it
done, it's because God gave you the will and the opportunity
and everything that needed to get it done, done. Because everything
comes from Him. Just as all creation that there
is came from Him, all air that we breathe came from Him, all
food that we eat comes from Him, so does anything good that we
might do. The power of God is openly declared
in every word of His Holy Scripture. When Christ called out, it is
finished, He declared His power, His strength, His finished work
of salvation. And so it is with all things.
When the Lord gives life to a dead, lost sinner, we see His power,
His authority, His sovereignty in everything that is. Look at verses 15 through 24
of Romans chapter 9. For he, speaking of God, saith
to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I
will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then
it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. Now, does that not address the
free will thing right there? We were talking about this Friday
night. How is it, and we know, we all, I think you know, there's
a lot of people out there who know this scripture and this
book way better than I do. And I use the Pope as an example,
but I'm pretty sure he's probably got every verse in this whole
book memorized. He reads this. How can the Catholics go on to
preach it's your free will to move about and do your thing?
How can they do that and still read that? Because they're blinded. The flesh is weak. You see what I'm saying about
making His strength perfect? The very fact that we cannot
see these things but we do now, glorifies Him. Because there
was a time when we neither saw him either, wasn't there? Could
we not say, each and every one of us, that there was a day when
we did not see that very thing? Maybe you worshipped God in some
way where you exercised your free will. Maybe you worshipped
God by showing up on Saturday, the Sabbath day, supposedly.
Maybe you did whatever, whatever it was you did. Do you not see yourself? in the
weakness that you are now? So that it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.
For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, for the Scripture saith
unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose, have I raised thee up,
the most richest man in the world at that time, The very ones who
used Israel and the backs of those people to build their diamonds,
their pyramids, their statues, their gods, their stone gods. Raise them up that they would
take Israel into bondage, into slavery. Why? Right here. For the Scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I
might show my power in thee. By the weakness of those people
that were held slavery, our God showed his strength. It was perfected. It was exposed. It was revealed.
The whole world could see what had happened at that time. Maybe
everybody didn't see the Red Sea depart, but there were many
who did. And to this day, there are still
many who have seen it in writing, that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Are we getting a picture of how
our Lord's strength is perfected in the weakness of men? We see
His perfection in everything. Not just in creation, but in
salvation. We see it in His power in getting
us out of the problems that we're in. Yesterday we were having
difficulties capping off the copper tubing. It's old copper
in the building next door. And we had to go through five
or six times redoing the copper caps to cap off the lines, because
we cut out a wall that had copper lines going through it, and we're
going to move the copper lines. I finally got to a point after
five or six times for both of them, my son and his friend Bill.
And they just could not get those lines to seal. And they're both
very experienced people doing that kind of thing. They were
both just frustrated to the point of no end. And I literally just
walked off and said, Lord, I haven't come to you today yet, have I?
I haven't come to you for this problem. And I'm not kidding,
folks. I'm not exaggerating. That was
the last time we put a cap on and everything was sealed. We come to know who it is that
rules all things. Not because of anything we have
done, but because He has shown it to us. We see His power in everything.
So as we continue to read verse 18, Therefore hath He mercy on
whom He will have mercy, and whom He will, He hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why
dost thou yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will? Nay, but O man, who art thou
that replyest against God? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Well, here's
a question for you. Hath not the potter power over
the clay of the same lump to make one vessel into honor and
another into dishonor? What if God, willing to show
his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction? What if our Lord
has just put all that destruction off so that another one of us
can be called out of darkness? So that another one of His chosen
can come to know the perfection of His power and their own weakness. The living God of all creation
has all power, even over the will of men. And when our great
God takes us through trials of any kind, His power is proven
over and over and over again. His strength is shown. The world
may not see it, but you and I do, don't we? We see the power of God in creation. We see the power of God in salvation. We see the power of God in preservation. In our weakness, his strength
is perfected. That may not make sense to the
blind world, but to one who has been healed of their spiritual
blindness, it makes perfect sense. Turn back to 1 Corinthians chapter
1, please. The world cannot see the true
power of God, even when He walked this earth and stood right before
them. And you and I were in that very
same camp. We too were blinded by our own
pride, by our own righteousness, that we could not see the power
of God. Yet a day came when God revealed His strength in and
to our very hearts through the preaching of His Word. A day
of His love. A day of His power. Are you with
me in 1 Corinthians chapter 1? Look at verse 18. for the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness." That's who you and I were at
one time. We were right there with the camp of the world. How
can He who hung on this cross, this One who is in the flesh,
how can that make me perfect? How can all my sins be laid upon
that? But that's what His Word teaches. And that's what He's given us
the faith to believe in. To believe that He has the power
to do that very thing. To take all of our sins. Every single
one that you and I will ever commit. And have committed and
buried in the ground. Never to be seen again. Oh, what
a blessing that is to me. For I know the sinner that I
am. For it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding
of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For
after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew
not God. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require
a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ
crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ,
the power of God, and the wisdom of God." Our Lord, our Savior. All power belongs to Him. All the fullness of the Godhead,
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit is in Him. Our Lord is the power of God
and it's been proven. It's been proven by what He has
done. It has been revealed. It's been revealed to our hearts
through the preaching of His Word by the power of the Holy
Spirit. It is complete. There's nothing
that you can add to it. It is finished. It is fulfilled. It is accomplished. And it's
proved. In other words, it's perfected. You see, it's not what I do or
have done that perfects the power of God. It's what he has done
in me. For my strength, he says, is
made perfect in weakness. In our weakness, the strength
of God is revealed. His deliverance of the Jews in
slavery to the Egyptians was a demonstration It was a picture
of that very strength. And the world saw his power executed
in the weakness of the people who could not deliver themselves.
Hold your place here in 1 Corinthians for just a moment and turn over
to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. We're going to come right back
to 1 Corinthians. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter
4. Verses 5. Second Corinthians. Chapter 4. Verse 5. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness
hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have
this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power
may be of God and not of us. We are troubled on every side,
yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in
despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed.
Always bearing about in the body of the dying of the Lord Jesus
that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our bodies. Salvation is of the Lord. There's no better message that
we could give. Now go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and let's
close with verses 25-31. For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after
the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God
hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty. And base things of the world
and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, the things
which are not to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh
should glory in His presence. But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. That according as it is written,
He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. I know my weakness. And here's the wonderful thing
of my Lord showing me how weak I am. As I turn from John and I look
to Him. He's all my strength. He's everything. And as I go
through this world, Every day I learn more and more to trust
in Him. Someday I'll be like Pastor Gene,
with that ability to just, it's the Lord's way, it's going to
be that way, and that's all there is to it. Someday. And then there's going to be
a day when I'll have all that flesh put away, and I'll see his perfection and
I'll see his glory as Henry Mahan does this day. Oh, how wonderful for that brother
who now stands in the presence of his Lord. Amen.