How Does God Reveal His Power Through Our Weakness?
What if your weakness isn’t something to hide, but the very place where God’s power is revealed? This blog explores how suffering, faith, and eternal hope are deeply connected in the Christian life.
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Treasure in Jars of Clay
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.
13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, 14 knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. 15 For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self[a] is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Treasure in Jars of Clay: How Jesus’ Life Is Revealed in Our Weakness
The Corinthians had some questions about Paul’s life. They were not sure his life was worth emulating. They may have been asking themselves: this is the guy whose life we are supposed to follow? It did not align with their understanding of what glory looked like. They were asking, how is the life of Jesus revealed in the suffering of His followers? In Paul? In us?
Last week, we heard the call to allow God’s light to shine in our hearts, so that we might give others knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. In this chapter, we explore a paradox of the Christian life: how suffering and glory are tied together in the believer’s life, and how that truth gives us hope not just for eternity but for now as well.
We should expect that our lives look like Christ’s in every way. That is what going on to perfection looks like. That may mean suffering even as He did, and thereby sharing in His life even more.
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” 2 Corinthians 4:7-11
Jesus’ Power Is Manifested in Our Weakness
When we begin to look for Jesus in suffering, we first notice that His power is manifested and seen in our weakness. Jesus’ life is revealed through His power in the midst of weakness.
That treasure is the gospel itself, the ministry that we use to carry it to others, to share it with the world. This beautiful thing is stored in these jars of clay. That is us. We are the jars of clay, fragile, destructible. Think of a terracotta planter that you might have, and you knock it over. Did it break? Did it chip? Of course. How weak we human beings can be.
We are weak vessels, but Christ still entrusts His gospel to us. The very power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes (Romans 1:16) is given to these ordinary, weak, and breakable creatures. Why is that?
When we are broken, it takes away our temptation to put the focus on ourselves or to put it on others instead of Christ. If we have it all together, if we are seemingly perfect, then maybe we would receive the glory, whether that is intentional or not. But if, even in the midst of suffering, Christ’s light shines forth, then maybe there really is something to this carpenter from Nazareth.
There is a story about jars of clay in the Old Testament. In Judges 7, Gideon was gathering to fight the Midianites. He had 22,000 men. But God said, “That’s too many.” They eventually cut it down to 300 men. God gave them trumpets and jars with candles inside and instructions: “When you hear me blow my trumpet, you blow your trumpet. Give a shout to the Lord and break the jar and let the light shine forth.”
The Lord had reduced them from 22,000 to 300, that they might not boast in their own strength. When people see our natural weakness, when they see the afflictions and sufferings we endure for Christ, they will know that the spiritual power they also see must come from God, not from ourselves.
Some of us need to be broken. I do. You do. We all need to be broken for Christ. We might be too independent. We might be overly dependent. We might be unteachable, prayerless, or secretive. Paul gave the Corinthians this list of contrasts he experienced:
Afflicted, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not despairing. At a loss, but not lost. Persecuted, but not forsaken.
When the Corinthians heard this list, they would have understood. There were philosophers of the day who would list out the things they suffered and say, “Look how I have overcome these.” Paul turned it around. He said, “No, not because of these things, but in spite of them, I am sustained by the power of God.”
Can you serve the Lord better if things are always easy? Haven’t times of difficulty been times of growth in your life?
We might be persecuted by men, but we are never abandoned. We might be at our wits’ end, but we are never at our hope’s end. We might be knocked down, but we are not knocked out. Whatever we must endure is bearable because God has promised to be with us.
David wrote: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). God offers us an escape. He will not let you be crushed or forsaken or abandoned. Even in our weakness, and maybe especially in our most weakened state, we see Christ.
Jesus’ Life Is Revealed Even in the Midst of Death
Paul said we are always vicariously participating in the life of Jesus, constantly aware that we are in the same process that He is. When we have died or when we are in the process of continually dying, then we are freed to live. Because you have shared in the death of Christ, you can share in the life of Christ, even before you die your natural physical death.
Christians have frequently faced the risk of death every day. That we do not do that here is a bit of a historical anomaly. But we are being crucified to the world. We are being crucified to its claim of power over our lives.
When Christ was teaching in John 12, He said:
“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:24-25
That is what Paul was saying. We gain when we seemingly lose. That is the whole message of 2 Corinthians. God is glorifying and being glorified through means that confound the world’s ways. We carry forth Jesus’ death to show His life.
The Apostle Paul endured many hardships. He was flogged and beaten. He was stoned and left for dead. He was placed in stocks, imprisoned multiple times, run out of town, shipwrecked, and exposed to the elements. He faced riots and mobs, difficult churches, abandonment by friends, attempted assassination plots, and a thorn in his flesh that the Lord did not remove.
Even still, the light of the gospel shone through his life. He could not do it on his own, and neither can we.
Part of God’s redemptive purpose is to use our being delivered up to a thousand deaths throughout this mortal existence to ignite and nurture life in others. In the believer’s life, death and resurrection simply coexist. In Christ, death leads to resurrection. There is no resurrection life without first being given over to death.
The death and resurrection of Jesus transpired not only in place of us, but also ahead of us in a way that we must follow. He is both a substitute and a pioneer, blazing a path that we will follow Him down. Being both Christ for us and Christ in us.
The unbelievers are the living dead, feeling themselves to be alive but most deeply and truly dying. Believers are the dying alive, feeling ourselves to be dying but slowly, most deeply possessing resurrection life.
Ministry is sometimes supposed to be a ministry of suffering. His critics thought this should be someone they could emulate, someone whose power and presence they could respect and admire. But it was the suffering he endured that released the resurrection life of Jesus into their lives at Corinth.
When there is weakness in believers, it enhances rather than hampers our boldness in ministry. That is the paradoxical nature of life in Christ.
Jesus’ Life Is Revealed Through Our Faith
Paul’s message was always the message of the cross. In his ministry, he was resolved to know nothing except Jesus, and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). He testified that what he wanted to know above all was Christ and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in death (Philippians 3:10).
It is through our dying that the life of Christ is brought to others, because His life is revealed through our faith, which leads to speech.
In verse 13, Paul quoted from Psalm 116, which is about life coming out of death. The psalmist recounted the experience of distress at death’s door when there was no humanly possible escape, but the Lord delivered him. When God shows up and fulfills His promises, our faith is strengthened.
How could Paul speak so boldly? Verse 14: because he knew that the one who raised the Lord from the dead will raise us also with Him. This faith is motivated by the reality of the resurrection and the new age that began with it.
Because Christ was resurrected, we are guaranteed to be resurrected also. There is a wonder in knowing the resurrection of Christ in our lives, here and now, and anticipating its completion in the future.
From the vantage point of convicted faith, Paul was willing to suffer: first for Jesus’ sake, then for the sake of the Corinthians, and ultimately for God’s eternal glory.
Jesus’ Life Is Revealed Through Eternal Hope
Paul wrote verse 16 to give them encouragement: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).
He began to name the ways that may cause us to lose heart. We are wasting, decaying, eroding bit by bit. That word is the same one Jesus used when He talked about moths that come to destroy the treasure we have saved for ourselves (Matthew 6:19).
Picture a healthy cicada struggling to break out of its decaying body, and then that dead outer shell. It is still there, but it does not define it. Soon, it will no longer be part of its existence. That cicada has a new life it has begun to experience.
Our inner self, friends, if you were just baptized, I am talking to you. When you come up out of the waters, you are a new creature in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). You are empowered to live differently. God is giving you His Holy Spirit. The eternal self has emerged. Day by day, you are getting closer to that age to come. That new body is waking up and stretching its limbs, preparing for this new life. Even when there is outer decay, the inner life is being revived.
That is why Paul gloried in Christ and the cross. Through his inadequacy, God’s divine power was unleashed.
The Weight of Glory
What is wasting away even accomplishing, you might ask? How in the world can you call this light? When people are sick, when people are dying, when people are struggling, when people do not have their needs met, when people have their friends and their families turn on them and abandon them.
The answer lies in the comparison. Paul did not just talk about the glory of God. He characterized that glory in verse 17. It is not just the glory, it is the weight of glory. Not just the heaviness and the weight of glory, but the eternal weight of glory. It goes on forever. It is not just eternal, but exceedingly eternal. Not just exceeding, it is exceeding. Not just more exceeding, it is far more exceeding.
“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
It cannot be compared to anything of this age. Whatever you are enduring pales in comparison to the glory of Christ and the life you have in Him now and the life that is to come.
This is not downplaying the tragedy that exists in this world. But in comparison, they are light as a feather. We cannot compare the eternal to the temporary. We cannot compare the light to the heavy.
Troubles that are born for Jesus’ sake are producing a glory in you beyond all measure. They are going from the light and the momentary to the eternal. That glory will outweigh everything in this world.
In God’s economy, suffering produces glory (Romans 5:3-5). So we should expect it. Peter put it like this: “Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:12-13).
If it is not strange, it is normal. We are not called just to suffer through the troubles of this world, to not just endure them, to not just tolerate them, but to rejoice when they come. When these sufferings of Christ present themselves, we get to share in His glory through them.
Paul said in Romans 8: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).
There is something coming that is greater that He is inviting us into. Even as we waste away, we are being refined more and more into His likeness.
Michelangelo said, “The more the marble wastes, the more the statue grows.” Bit by bit, being chipped away, being scratched off, being smoothed out, being refined. Christ wants to grow you. Christ wants to be glorified through you and wants you to understand the beauty of complete dependence on Him.
What we can see here is only temporary. Let us fix our eyes on the next world of coming glory that we can only see with eyes of faith. One day, Revelation 21 says, the invisible will explode onto the scene in a way that is visible for all to see. But this new age has already begun with Christ’s resurrection.
If we only look to what can be seen, we will quickly become discouraged. So take heart and look to the eternal.
Made for Eternity
Eternity is built into our very existence. C.S. Lewis wrote to his friend: “Notice how we are perpetually surprised at time. How time flies. Fancy John being grown up and married. I can hardly believe it. In heaven’s name, why? Unless indeed there is something in us which is not temporal.”
Friends, you were made for eternity. Do not allow the struggles of this world to blind you to the glory they can produce in Christ.
Is your life perfect right now? No, of course not. We all have something that we are carrying. We all have some sort of suffering we are enduring. We have something we might be suffering from. But do not take your eyes off Christ.
This weekend, the March Madness Basketball Tournament began. Forty-three years ago, that tournament was won by NC State, coached by Jimmy Valvano. Thirty-three years ago, he stood on the platform at the very first ESPY Awards in March of 1993. He stood there that night knowing he had been diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic adenocarcinoma. By all accounts, he would probably be dead within the next couple of months.
But he was a devout Christian. He gave a five-minute speech that talked about his life and the lessons he had learned, and he ended it with his tagline that has become the motto for his foundation: “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”
How can a Christian speak so boldly? Because we as believers possess a certain future that is beyond death, a future that has broken into the present with Christ’s life and ministry and death and resurrection, one that gives us assurance. So like Paul said in Philippians: “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).
The Gospel for Today
The gospel for today is that even your worst sufferings, even those worst sufferings in Christ, will be used by Him for His glory, for the salvation of others, and for your own sanctification.
There are storms in life that we all must endure. There are storms in life that we may not know how they will end. If we speak frankly and boldly, they may end in ways we would not have chosen for ourselves. But Christ can take them. He can use them to let His light shine through them.
When you are broken down by the circumstances of this world, and you still show Christ through them, people will see you, and they will see Christ through you, and He will be glorified. It may bring them to faith. It may inspire their faith. It may bring them to deeper faith.
God is not surprised by the storms that you have in your life. If you will let Him, He will shine His light through you and give you strength to press on, to persevere, to not give up, keeping the eternal glory in sight as you go through your regular, everyday life.
He will not leave you or abandon you. He promises never to forsake you, to not let you be crushed or destroyed because of His great love in you.
So whatever you are carrying today, give it to Christ. Whatever burden is shackling you, whatever you feel like you are stymied by, whatever you wake up and it is the first thing you think of, or maybe it wakes you up in the middle of the night, maybe it is your closing thought as you go to bed, whatever suffering you are enduring right now, give it to Christ.
Let Him use it for His glory. Let Him use it to draw all people to Himself. Let Him use it for your own good and your own sanctification.
TL;DR
God places the treasure of the gospel in fragile people so that His power, not ours, is clearly seen.
Suffering does not mean abandonment; even in affliction, believers are sustained, renewed, and never destroyed.
The pattern of the Christian life mirrors Jesus; death leads to life, and weakness becomes the pathway to resurrection power.
Present suffering is temporary, but it is producing an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs anything experienced now.
