God's Power Made Perfect In Weakness

This morning we will not actually be pressing forward in the book of Hebrews, if you've already been turning there. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Once again, let us ask the Lord's blessing upon our time.

Pray that the Holy Spirit of God would be with us during this hour. Our gracious Heavenly Father, once again, we come into your presence gathered in this place, desirous that you would meet with us by your Spirit.

We confess that apart from your Spirit, we indeed can do nothing. We desire that sweet union of your Word and your Spirit, that together with a people who have gathered together, who desire to be conformed to the image of Christ, who desire to be more like Him, to know His truth and to live in the light thereof.

May you be pleased to gather with us. May be pleased with what takes place during this hour. All to your honor and glory, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Some of you know, over the past weekend, I was not here.

In fact, I was supposed to get home a week ago this evening. I did not. It's the first time I have now flown hundreds of thousands of miles over the past numbers of years. I would imagine now that I think about it, the numbers over a million miles.

In all that time, I had never been stranded anywhere before. But on the flight back from Madrid, Spain, we got into the U .S. and I noticed we just weren't going all that fast. Because of the weather back east, we got stuck.

If you've been on an international flight, you know that there's this... Most of the airlines, you have this screen up there and it sort of shows your path and it zooms in and out and you can see where you've been.

And we got down into Pennsylvania and just started going around and around and around. Sort of like the busy signal on your computer, except we're in a plane. And so we were stuck in the proverbial holding pattern.

And I had a pretty tight connection as it was, because when you get back from overseas, you've got to go through customs. And you get to meet these very unsmiling customs agents, who just sort of sit there and look at you in a very suspicious fashion.

And look at you, you know, they ask you interesting questions. What were you doing? And where do you live? And what's your middle name? And stuff like this. And they're trying to trip you up. And of course, if you haven't slept all night, you might not remember any of those things.

Anyways, I don't know where I've been and I'm not sure where I'm going. But anyway, by the time I got through all of that and got my luggage, and you have to recheck and all the rest of that stuff, the flight to Phoenix was long gone.

So there I was in Philadelphia with one light jacket. Hadn't thought about that part of it. And so we had an interesting trip. But why had I gone to Spain is actually what I was going for here. And some of you have seen, probably not a lot of you, but some of you have seen the debates that took place last Friday and Saturday evenings.

On Friday evening, both on a television network that is seen across the United Kingdom and Europe itself. And we had a debate, I guess, was how it was styled. It really wasn't as formal as the debate I'm used to doing.

But a debate on the extent of the atonement and on the subject of healing. And so if you saw those debates, then you know that I had a grand total of maybe five minutes to make an opening presentation.

And then there was interaction. And I was very pleased with how they went, in the sense that in Europe especially, there's not a whole lot of this kind of theological dialogue going on. There's a tremendous amount of liberalism.

I and my debate partner, Michael Brown, both believe that the Bible is the word of God. And so that was pretty unusual in and of itself. That probably left a lot of the people who watched it wondering what in the world was happening.

But clearly, as my mind was focused upon those two issues, one of the things that came up in my thinking was that though we have discussed one of those two topics from the pulpit, it's been a while since we've specifically addressed the other of those two.

And since it's always best to speak upon what is fresh in your mind, today, this morning, I would like to sort of reverse the order in which we did the presentation and talk to you about a rather controversial subject.

Not controversial, I think, because of what the Bible teaches, but simply because of how mankind interacts with what the Bible teaches. And so in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, we have these words from the Apostle Paul, beginning at verse 7.

So, to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.

Three times I plead with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Now, we all are familiar with this text. It is a text that is quoted many times. But the disputed topic that we were dealing with is the subject of healing in the church today. And of course, the one that I was dialoguing with believes that the gifts of healing that were seen in the apostolic ministry remain in the church today and are to be practiced in the church today.

Well, there is certainly no question about the fact that the New Testament reveals to us a very unusual change in how God had been dealing with his people for quite some time. I mean, when you look at the Old Testament, there are some miraculous events that take place.

You do have, interestingly enough, frequently non-Jews being healed in miraculous fashion. But what we see in the ministry of Jesus is a veritable explosion. I mean, if you were to do a computer graph type thing and do a timeline of the miraculous healings in the Old Testament and then have that timeline go through the intertestamental period and then come to the period of the New Testament, and then even in the lifetime of Jesus, and then all of a sudden at the beginning of the ministry of Christ, the graph would explode.

I mean, Jesus is going around and there is just a tremendous amount of healing going on. People are bringing him the sick. We have the story of people opening up the roof to lower a man down because they couldn't get to him.

There's just this explosion of healing that takes place. There's a great deal of demonic activity that is dealt with at that particular point in time. We think of the Gadarean demoniac, but we even have people being raised from the dead in the instance of Lazarus or in Nain and places like that.

And so there is this huge explosion. And then after the resurrection of Christ, there still seems to be a lot of healing going on. I mean, at one point we're told that people are bringing people out and they're laying them in their beds upon the streets just lest Peter's shadow should fall upon them.

And even toward the end of Paul's life, there's still that incident where, well, we know in Paul's experience, we've got the viper that strikes him and we have the healings that were involved there. And so don't people have an argument that in essence, the normative experience of the church in those early years, there was a lot of miraculous healing going on, right?

Well, there's no question that there was. There was a tremendous amount of outpouring of the Spirit of God and there were miraculous events taking place. There's Jesus walking upon the water and all the things like that.

But if we read the New Testament and we read all of it and we don't start with the presupposition, and this is where one of the main issues is, we don't start with the presupposition is that whatever was taking place during the most primitive days is how it's always supposed to be.

Now, why shouldn't we take that presupposition? There's a lot of people that say that's exactly what we should do. In fact, most of the major, quote-unquote, revival movements over the history of the church have been related to the idea we need to get back to the time of the primitive church.

Now, why would anybody not want to get back to the time of the primitive church? I'm not just talking about the fact that, well, yeah, we had all those problems in Corinth and things weren't really good there and most people did not have the entirety of the New Testament.

And so, especially when we get past the period of the apostles, we start looking at some of the writings that appear shortly after that and there's some real ignorance in that period of time. Some writers didn't even have almost anything Paul wrote or anything at all that Paul wrote.

And as a result, there's some imbalances, there's some errors. When you have the entirety of the New Testament, you've got a lot of ground there to keep us balanced. I think of a balance beam. You know, it's awful nice when it's...

I could do balance beam real well. The balance beam was about two feet wide. But it's not two feet wide. The point being that the wider the surface you've got, the more balanced you can be. When you're on something really narrow, you only have so much.

It takes a lot of effort to stay upon that thing. And it seems that especially in the period right after the apostles, there were people that they fell off because they just didn't have a whole lot of the apostles' teaching available to them.

And so, having the entire New Testament, I think we can argue pretty effectively that that's what God wants us to have. I mean, we look at how the Old Testament was given to us and we're told in the New Testament those things were given to us for our edification, for our example.

And so, God made sure that we had what we were supposed to have. You never find Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees arguing about what Scripture was and wasn't. So, God had put forth effort to make sure His people had His Word.

And I think He did the same thing in the New Testament as well. And so, there's all this that we have in the New Testament, yet there was a period of time when people didn't have that. And we see some real problems because of that.

So, do we really want to go back there? But here's the real issue. You see, if we want to get back to the time of the apostles, you know what you need? Apostles. I mean, isn't that rather obvious? If you want to go back to the apostolic period, what marks the apostolic period?

Well, the Word sort of tells you. Apostles. And that's why there are a lot of people in the charismatic movement that would say, well, we have apostles. There are people that have been given a particular authority and a particular, not in the way of writing new scripture.

And I'm like, I don't see those apostles. Okay, there might be some people that were sent by the churches, but the apostles of Christ had a particular authority and they were a gift to the church. Paul even says that he gives some as apostles.

Well, who were they? Well, we know that there were specific requirements as to who would and who would not be an apostle. There had to be the observance of Jesus's ministry and witness resurrection and things like that.

And we could get into the issue of, you know, what about the casting of lots to fill Judas's part? Wasn't that really Paul's place? And wasn't that up to God? And it doesn't say any place that God made the lot come out a certain way.

And we get into all that. But the point is that apostles were a very particular people. And we do have that statement in scripture that the church is being built upon what? What's the church being built upon?

It's being built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets with what? Jesus Christ himself as the cornerstone. Now, maybe I've been influenced by my experience a bit much, but there have been many times on the sidewalks in Salt Lake City or in Mesa in talking with our Mormon friends that I've had to point out something that seems fairly obvious to me.

That is, when you're building a building, you got to have a foundation. Got to have a foundation. The Bible says we have a foundation built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.

But how many times do you lay a foundation? How many times do you lay a foundation? You see, our Mormon friends have had about 100 apostles so far. They're still working on the foundation. You can't build a wall as long as you keep laying a foundation.

Doesn't make any sense. A foundation is laid down. It's firm. It's lasting because God's the one who put it there. And then you build the building upon it. And just as Jesus is no longer physically present with us, we're awaiting his coming.

Maranatha, you know, we're looking for his coming. In the same way, prophets and apostles in the New Testament sense as people through whom revelation comes, they laid the foundation. And we've got the foundation.

And God has preserved that foundation down through the ages for us. And yet there's some folks, they want to keep laying that foundation. They want to keep laying that foundation. Now, we come back to our subject with that in mind.

There have been people who said we want to keep going. We want to go back. We want things the way they were then. Well, I submit to you, they can't be the way they were then. And it is not God's intention that they be because we don't have prophets.

Why was it that Peter's shadow could cause healing? Because God was saying, here is one of the apostles of Jesus Christ. Hear what he has to say. He doesn't have a bunch of degrees. That's not going to be the way things are.

But here is a witness to the fact that I've raised my beloved son from the dead. Hear him. There is a means that God has given whereby the authority of these men was established. And that was a very specific time and had a very specific purpose.

Now, you might say, well, then what about all those healings? Well, there are a couple texts I want to suggest to you that need to be kept in balance. First of all, we all know James chapter 5. One of the reasons we all know James chapter 5 is because we have a tradition around here.

And we read through the wisdom literature of the Bible. And we include the epistle of James in there. We are not Lutherans. We do not call James the right straw epistle. We see the wisdom that is to be found there.

And hence, we've read James chapter 5. And if any of you are sick, what are you supposed to do? Well, now be careful. Because you see, for a lot of folks, if any of you are sick, you go and try to find yourself a divine healer.

Somebody who claims to have a particular gift. Now, you might need to sow your seed to get in. Or sow your seed to make sure that that divine healer can get jet fuel for his private jet that he flew to get to where you are.

And some of you know who I'm talking about. But actually, there are dozens of people like that. Not just the best known. But you go looking for the divine healer. I don't find any divine healers in the New Testament other than God himself.

Instead, James chapter 5, very interestingly, places this issue within the context of the church. And ironically, most of the people running around claiming to be divine healers, they're not a part of the church.

Oh, they may claim to be. But they've got that real wonderful fuzzy church doctrine going on where the church is wherever two or three gather. This stuff about elders and deacons and the Lord's Supper and baptism and all that stuff.

Yeah, we're not really all that concerned about that. Sure, you know, when we're not on the road, we go to a particular church. But the idea they're actually under anyone's authority is pretty rare in that situation.

Which makes me extremely, extremely suspicious of their claims. James chapter 5 says you call for the elders. And it's all in the context of prayer. And there's some discussion of if sin's involved, because sin can bring about the failure of the physical body.

It's not always. If there's sin, that's not always the case. Point is, it's placed in the context of the church. And so on the one hand, we are told to pray. And we're told to pray in faith. Why? Because God's the maker of these bodies.

And if a argument could be made against us, it's that very often we don't pray in faith. Maybe because we're good Calvinists, we just go, well, I'm just going to have to soldier through. And yet, every single time God's ever lifted anybody up, whether he's used means, done so instantly, done so over time, God is the healer.

I mean, I'm awful glad he has provided us with many more means than most generations before us have ever had. But God's the healer. He's the one that's given us the ability to know about how these bodies work.

To be able to not abuse them the way that sometimes we have in the past, just out of ignorance. But even then, we as Christians cannot question the reality that if God wants to heal somebody and leave the doctors going, he can do that.

He still has that power. He still has that ability. You can't question that in the New Testament. It's not possible. But where that becomes an abusive thing is when you forget one simple thing that I think the New Testament is absolutely clear on.

And that is, God is free to do that when God decrees to do that, not when we command him to do that. That's the problem. That's the problem. That's where the imbalance comes in. And that was one of the things I tried to focus in on in our conversation.

Was to say, if we let all of the New Testament speak, I'll accept your exhortation that we are to pray in faith and we are to believe that God has the power. I'll accept that. But what you need to hear is that there are many times when we pray, we let our deepest desires be known before God, and it's simply not God's will.

I can't tell you how many times. Maybe some of you remember this. They messed up the school system right as I graduated from junior high school many, many years ago in the late 1970s. I was supposed to go to Greenway High School.

I live not very far away. That's where I was thought to be going. But so they opened this school up out at 75th Avenue and Maryland, which was nowhere near where I lived, called Independence High School.

And they decided they needed to ship somebody down there to fill this place up. And so I happened to be on the wrong side of 51st Avenue. And so I got shipped down to Independence High School. Man, that was a long bus ride.

That was just ridiculous. And so as soon as I got my driver's license in the middle of my sophomore year, I started driving my 1972 Buick LeSabre. We called it the Brown Bomb V8. Oh man, that thing was a beast.

12 miles to the gallon if I was being good. And what, Sean, you have one of these things? So I started driving that thing down to Independence High School. And I would most of the time listen to tapes.

Remember those? Pastor Fry remembers. But tapes. And I didn't even have a cassette deck installed. It was one of those, you know, Radio Shack battery-powered things, you know, sitting on the seat next to me, you know.

But once in a while, I'd turn on the Christian radio, a Christian radio station. And I don't know how this happens. I mean, my memory's getting bad. But I can remember so clearly on one of those fairly lengthy drives down to Independence High School one time, sophomore year, probably, actually, I would say it was sometime in my junior year.

I happened to have turned on the radio. And I don't know how I ran into it. But it was either Papa Hagen or Kenneth Copeland, one of the two, was on radio. And he was just going to town on how if you ever pray in regards to healing and say, if it be your will, you've just short-circuited the power of God.

Never, ever, ever pray, if it be thy will. Because, you know, you boil it all down. The point is, if it's your will, not if it's God's will anyway. Because you've got to speak the word into existence and all the rest of that lunacy that has made those folks multimillionaires.

But anyway, and I just remember sitting there driving along going, man, how does anybody stand in front of an audience and tell people never, ever pray, if it be God's will? I mean, what kind of a view of God do you have?

And who do you think you are? Now, I hopefully since then have learned a little bit more and could even be more upset when I hear someone say that than I could when I was a junior in high school. But it was pretty obvious to me that there was a fundamental problem in this perspective.

And this is where it comes in. Because you see, most of these folks will look at this text and they'll say, yeah, that thorn in the flesh, we really don't know what it was. And it probably was a false teacher or somebody.

It wasn't anything to do with Paul's body. Well, why would they be so concerned about that? Well, because Paul pleaded with the Lord three times that it should be taken away from him. And Jesus' response, well, it just doesn't fit with the idea.

The apostles just had this power where anybody, they could just yell, they hailed and they were healed. It didn't really work that way, even on himself. Because Jesus' response to Paul was, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power.

And that's the very word that's normally translated in the New Testament in regards to the miracles of Jesus. The dunamis, my power, is made perfect. It is completed in asthanaios. Asthanaios, what is weakness?

What does, what would weakness be? Well, let me give you another example of an asthanaios, of an asthanaios. Look at 1 Timothy 5 .23. Here's a real practical example. 1 Timothy 5 .23, the apostle writing to Timothy says, no longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent asthanaios, your frequent ailments.

Now, there can be no question in this context what asthanaios refers to. Because he's talking about Timothy and Timothy seemingly has a weak stomach and Paul is suggesting to him, well, don't just drink water, use a little wine for the sake of your stomach.

And I love the Greek term for stomach, it's stomach. And this really comes across easily there. And your frequent ailments. He's living in the period of apostolic miracles? Isn't this, isn't he the next generation?

Haven't you put him in a real difficult spot of leading a large and important church? And if healing, if divine healing is always God's will, well, maybe, maybe Timothy's got some real faith issues here.

But that's not what the rest of the epistle says. Instead, Timothy had some frequent ailments. And I don't see any evidence that Paul goes, now because of those frequent ailments, Timothy, I need to send you another epistle about your lack of proper faith.

No, he doesn't say that to him. He does suggest that he do something other than that. And it's interesting in 2 Timothy chapter 4. Look at 2 Timothy chapter 4 for a moment. Just in passing, the apostle is talking about the fact that he doesn't have a whole lot of support in the ministry right now.

He's alone. He wants Timothy to come before winter. He wants them to bring those, you know, some stuff for Paul. And notice what it says in verse 20. Erastus remained a Corinth, but Trophimus, I left sick at Miletus.

Well, Paul, you healed people. Even at the end of your ministry, you're healing people as you are proclaiming the gospel there in your imprisonment. And here's Trophimus, and he's a beloved brother, and he's very useful to you in the ministry.

It's not like John Mark ran off on you. I mean, there's nothing that's said negative about Trophimus. And you left him sick in Miletus? Why? Well, put those two things together. Paul can exercise miracles of healing in what context?

In the establishment of the gospel of Christ and his proclamation in a new context at the end of the apostolic age. But when it comes to someone who is one of his fellow workers, you see, this gift of healing was never, ever meant.

To make life easy for Christians, it was always meant to point to the purposes and power of God and the establishment of the authority of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Here's Trophimus, and he left him at Miletus sick.

Did he try to raise him up and failed? We're hiding something here? You see, if there was somebody, initially what I was asked to do, and man, this whole trip came together really fast. And initially, I was like, I don't know.

I said, that's not where I want to, I don't know about this. But I'm very glad it happened. Initially, what I was asked to do was to debate, is there such thing as divine healers? Not the concept of just healing, but divine healers in the church today.

And if there was such a person, and since it sort of became more diluted from that, I really didn't get into that specific issue too much. But one of the things I was going to say is, if there was such a thing, because Paul talks about some diverse healing.

It's interesting, gifts of healing. It's not the gift of healing, but gifts of healing. It's not the same thing. But if there was, I don't think we'd ever know about them. Because you see, such a person under the sovereignty of God would have to know what the will of God was for another person.

And that's not what we see in people who call themselves divine healers today. Come for your miracle! See, sow some seed to my ministry while you're here. But come for your miracle! Expect a miracle! I consider that blasphemy.

If God wants to work in a miraculous fashion, that's up to God. He doesn't do it on your timetable, at your meetings, for your bottom line. And I would never want to stand before God and be accountable for ever having told anybody, come here and expect your miracle.

And we know how often people come, and we've seen the videos of them bringing their loved ones on their oxygen and in their wheelchairs, and then wheeling them out after the service is over as well. We've seen it happen.

See, the point would be, while Paul had the gift of healings, it did not make him a divine healer. He wouldn't have had to tell Timothy. When he told Timothy, he wouldn't have had to leave Trophimus sick at Miletus.

And remember right in the middle of the Epistle of Joy, what happened in Philippians chapter 2? Remember that? Philippians chapter 2. Remember Epaphroditus? He says, you know, and Epaphroditus, God had mercy on me lest I have sorrow upon sorrow.

Epaphroditus was healed, but Paul doesn't say, I just proclaimed the word over him and he was raised up. Instead, the whole way in Philippians 2 .25 and following that Paul expresses it, it comes across as he had a lengthy sickness, and God had raised him up so that Paul would not have grief upon grief.

Doesn't sound like Paul thought he had some ability to just simply raise people up. It sounds like Paul prayed for him, and it took time, and there was a healing process. Sort of like, well, what we normally experience.

And yet, even though it was a process, what does Paul recognize in it? God brought about even that slow process of healing in the same way that Paul would recognize that he himself had been healed of his blindness when Ananias comes to him after his conversion.

And so, Paul recognized these things and did not see any tension in these things. And the only time attention does come into existence is when people start teaching something other than what we find in Scripture.

And a recognition that if we allow the New Testament to speak for itself, we have to ask ourselves that fundamental question. What is God doing in this world? You see, when we boiled it all down, the individual with whom I was debating the subject, and I start at very different places in regards to the sovereignty of God and His divine decree in time.

We begin at different places. And anybody who recognizes what the Scriptures teach recognizes that there's a great danger in having your doctrine of God over here, and your doctrine of providence here, and your doctrine of divine healing here, and your doctrine of the Trinity over there, and atonement here.

You've got them all spread out and you don't see how they're related to one another. There's great danger there. When you bring them all together, it can be a painful thing to do. Because you can discover that what you were taught about this over here, you've been really comfortable with that your whole life.

You start bringing it closer to the central doctrines and you realize, Oh, that was a tradition I had. And I need to change that tradition. Because the light of the core is now shining upon this, which isn't quite as centered to the core.

And I bring it closer and that can be really painful for people. And people get really angry when you force them to do that. And to be honest with you, sometimes we try to force people to do it before the Lord's actually doing it for them.

Then they get really angry at us and it's a real mess. But when that process happens, and it has to happen by the Spirit of God causing it to happen, then we desire that what we believe about this be consistent here.

And we're willing to make a change. See, most people, they're never forced to bring this stuff together. And so, the real issue takes us back to one simple question. What is God's purpose for believers?

And I would say His fundamental purpose is to conform each one of us to the image of Jesus Christ. And He gets to be the one to determine what path we are going to walk that is going to accomplish that to His honor and glory.

It's not up to us to determine that. It's not up to us to do that. Now, the issue of our physical status, our level of health, our disabilities is part and parcel of that. Now, my friend has a point. The Bible very rarely, if ever, describes these disabilities as a blessing from God.

Yes, the psalmist said it was good that I was afflicted. But that was how we responded to an affliction. And that's important, very important. It is a part of the fallen world. Adam was fully functional.

Prior to the fall, Adam didn't need a doctor. But now, that's not where we are anymore. And of course, they raise the issue of, well, you know, I didn't intend this, but it just so happened, what did we read as the scripture reads?

1 Peter 2, what was in verse 24? Quotations by Isaiah 53, by His stripes we are healed. Now, Peter makes application to what? And to what only there? Salvation, spiritual salvation. But in Matthew, Matthew actually quotes it in regards to the healing ministry of Jesus.

And they'll make the proper point that in the ministry of Jesus, there was a, in the establishment of the Messiah and His kingdom, there was a demonstration of what's to come. But there is the real issue, isn't it?

What's to come? The now and the not yet. Yeah, I don't think we're going to be spending eternity with sniffles and sinus problems and ingrown toenails. That's definitely a part of the fallen created order.

So, there is a demonstration that God is sovereign over those things and that God is going to banish all those things. And He has power over all those things. But really, the issue comes down to this.

And I was at least thankful on this level that my dialogue partner did try to struggle with this, even in a major book that he wrote on this subject, that we would disagree with a lot in its application.

But he's not like a lot of those folks that say, never say the will, you know, never say it would be thy will and all the rest of that kind of stuff. And he had to deal with the reality that I don't care what church you're in.

There are people who suffer from long-term physical issues. It's a reality of any gathering of the body of Christ. And we all know people in that situation can be all sorts of different kinds of things, all sorts of different kinds of asthenia, weaknesses in the physical body.

But when you start with the recognition that God is sovereign over all things and He has a purpose, when you take personally those words of Colossians 3, I have died and my life has been hidden with Christ in God.

I've used the illustration many times before. Take a ring. I have died. My life has been hidden with Christ in God. Nothing can touch my life that does not go through the very will of the Father and the Son together.

Then that means that anything that touches me has a purpose. It has a purpose. In Paul's experience, he had to learn in light of the great revelations that had been given to him. And I don't know, if you had seen the things that Paul saw, I have a feeling he was probably, when he was a student of Gamaliel, he was probably one of the first ones to turn in his quizzes.

Always going for the curve buster guy. I just sort of have a feeling that's probably a way, sort of type A driven personality guy, you know what I mean? And so when he starts to see all these amazing things, the surpassing revelations, well, God gives him a gift.