Please turn with me this morning to 2 Corinthians chapter 11. We'll be looking at verses 16 through 33 today as we near the end of this letter from the Apostle Paul to the first century church at Corinth. 2 Corinthians 11. Verses 16 through 33. I repeat.
Let no one think me foolish. But even if you do, accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little. What I am saying with this boastful confidence, I say not as the Lord would, but as a fool. Since many boast according to the flesh, I too will boast. For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves.
For you bear it if someone makes slaves of you, or devours you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face. To my shame, I must say we were too weak for that. But whatever else anyone else dares to boast of, I'm speaking as a fool. I also dare to boast of that. Are they Hebrews?
So am I. Are they Israelites?
So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham?
So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I'm a better one. I'm talking like a madman with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes, less one.
Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I was adrift at sea. On frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers. In toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.
And apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is made to fall and I am not indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, He who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.
at Damascus. The governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall. and escaped his hands. Let's pray.
Okay. Lord, thank you that we get to read and meditate on your divine revelation. Thank you for the specific passage of scripture before us. This morning.
Now, would you give us understanding minds, give us pliable hearts? That we might know and believe and obey what you have said to us. for our benefit. Not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but to your name be the glory, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Sure. What you love determines who you follow. and who you follow determines where you end up. If you love what God loves, you will follow godly counsel. Righteous leaders, biblical instruction, and you will experience the fruits of that godly council, those righteous leaders, that biblical instruction.
If you love what the world loves. You will follow what the world values and promotes. and you will end up getting the fruits of worldliness. What you love determines what you follow. And what you follow determines where you end up.
There was a situation in the Old Testament that illustrates this principle. Israel was becoming increasingly enamored with the ways of the world and decreasingly faithful to the Lord. And so the Lord raised up an enemy of ruthless, wicked people, a superpower nation to oppress Israel and steer them back to the paths of righteousness. Israel should have repented of their sinful affections and returned to the Lord. That would have been the right response to God's chastening.
But instead, Israel ran to Egypt for help. When faced with the threat of a superpower, they trusted in another superpower for protection. They ran to what they loved, which was not God, but military strength. In Isaiah 30, we read God's warning to Israel. Isaiah 31 through 3 says, Stubborn children, declares the Lord.
Who carry out a plan but not mine, and who make an alliance but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin. who set out to go down to Egypt. without asking for my direction. to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh. and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt.
Therefore, Shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame? and the shelter and the shadow of Egypt into your humiliation. Israel loved military strength. And consequently, they trusted in military strength when they should have been trusting in the Lord.
Now, perhaps we sit here safely removed from Israel's folly by some 2,500 years and say, How could Israel be so foolish? How could they think Egypt was a trustworthy ally after all that God had done for them? That was so dumb. That was so wicked of them.
Well, what we love determines what we follow. Israel loved the prestige and strength of Egypt. They loved a savior that they could see. They loved the safety net of horses and chariots, and so they looked to Egypt for salvation. The church in first century Corinth was doing the same thing that Israel.
In Isaiah 30, they had done because their values and affections were shaped by the world around them. They followed leaders and influences and counsel that reflected those values. They loved rhetorical strength and poise and eloquence and credibility. And so they looked to the strong, the gifted, the credible to lead them, but in so doing overlooked God's provision. Overlook God's apostle.
overlooked God's blessing. What we love, we follow. And what we follow shapes our lives.
So if Israel could see God part the Red Sea for them, and still want to go back to Egypt. And if Corinth could have the Apostle Paul as their church planter and still be swayed by braggadocious false teachers. Hadn't we better be careful not to underestimate our own vulnerability to be led astray by foolish affections and godless values? Hadn't we better stop and evaluate our own blind spots, our own susceptibilities to follow after our own foolish affections? There's a lot we can learn about ourselves.
By observing how Paul dealt with Corinth, a lot of pitfalls we can avoid. One of the lessons to be learned in our text today is that because we are prone to self-deception, we sometimes need a harsh grace. to jolt us out of our foolishness. I call it a harsh grace because it doesn't necessarily feel like grace. It may feel like an insult.
But it is God graciously calling us back to Himself. We discover this harsh grace in the form of sarcasm from Paul in verses 16 through 21. Paul has been engaged in some divinely inspired boasting in order to make a point. And in verse 16, he acknowledges the inherent foolishness of boasting, but that's just the point. He's mirroring the behavior of the false teachers in order to show Corinth just how foolish they truly are.
Verse 16. I repeat, let no one think me foolish, but even if you do, accept me as a fool so that I too may boast a little. What I am saying with this boastful confidence, I say not as the Lord would, but as a fool, since many boast according to the flesh. Implying that this is what those false teachers were doing. Many boast according to the flesh, I too will boast.
And then Paul goes into full-blown sarcasm mode in verse 19. For you, Corinth, gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves. He intentionally flatters Corinth by calling them wise. And what is the evidence of their wisdom? Verse 20.
For you bear it if someone makes slaves of you. or devours you. Or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face. Paul is describing the ways in which these false teachers have taken advantage of Corinth's naive love of showy things. And he's pretending that Corinth sees through the charade of these charlatans, knowing full well that they haven't.
It's irony, it's sarcasm. It's as if Paul is saying, oh, you, Corinth, wouldn't be so foolish as to actually believe these fools. Clearly, you're just putting up with them, bearing with them out of a sense of pity or deference or just good manners. But surely not because you actually trust foolish snake oil salesmen who are trying to take advantage of you.
So, since Corinth is so gracious in putting up with the foolishness of boasting, Paul decides to engage. in a little boasting of his own. Maybe the way to win over the hearts of these Corinthians is to take on the persona of those who have captured Corinth's affections.
Now, to be clear, obviously, Paul knows better. That's why he keeps clarifying, like in verse 17, I'm speaking as a fool, not as a spokesman for the Lord. Paul is playing the part of the fool to expose Corinth's misplaced loyalty. It's like the parent who helps the child pack when the child threatens to run away from home. Oh, you don't like living under my authority?
You think you'll be better off on your own, do you?
Okay, well, let me help you pack your bags then. It's sort of reverse psychology, isn't it? It's going along with the foolishness in order to expose the folly of it all.
Now there's a risk in this approach, isn't there? The fool might not pick up on the sarcasm and think that the path they're heading down is a good one. They might misinterpret the harsh grace as permission or validation and even accelerate down this road to destruction. A child might think that the parent actually supports their idea that running away is a good option. We'll see in a moment how Paul ensures that Corinth doesn't misunderstand his intentions, that they get his sarcasm.
But first, let's just stop and consider. Why is it? That we are so easily taken in by foolish people and follow them down foolish paths. Why do we do that? Why did Corinth do that?
A we like Corinth often tolerate harmful things because we're impressed by boasting. If we're bluntly honest with ourselves, we're impressed by boasting. We are by nature. Boasters. Remember, what we love, we follow.
We are by nature boasters, and so there's something about other boasters that inherently resonates with us. That is until their boasting eclipses our boasting. But our natural bent is to be impressed with the impressive. And so we're easily duped. By boasting.
Isaiah 10 exposes the foolishness of this tendency in man's heart. It says, The boastful says, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom. For I have understanding, but then God exposes the folly of our boasting by asking, shall the axe boast over him who chops with it? Or the saw magnify itself against him who saws with it. as if a rod should wield him who lifts it.
Or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood. Friends, there is no place for the pot to brag about what it is or what it can do. There's only room to boast of the potter. And the sooner we can realize that, the sooner we can realize that we were made to worship and not to be worshiped, the sooner we will stop worshiping ourselves. And worshiping others who reflect our image, our values, and start worshiping and loving, and therefore following the one who deserves all worship.
We're impressed by boasting. But we're also attracted to confidence.
Now, unlike boasting, confidence is not always a bad thing. There's a good kind of confidence and a bad kind of confidence. There's a sense in which Some degree of confidence is necessary for any effective leadership. The problem is we're often attracted to the wrong sort of confident leadership. Follow the kind of confidence that takes God as its object.
Be attracted to confidence that's tempered with humility and confidence that leans on the Lord and on his timing, not the self-sufficient kind, not the version that's independent-spirited. And lastly, we're often easily taken in by the wrong sort of influence because we are enthralled by strength. But again, it needs to be the right sort of strength, not strength for strength's sake. Any number of politicians and kings have exhibited strength. That doesn't make them righteous.
That doesn't make them worthy of our admiration and allegiance. Strength that finds its source in God is the kind to admire and follow. The point is we like Corinth before us and Israel before them. Have an innate tendency to love all the wrong traits and consequently to follow all the wrong influences. What we love is what we follow, and what we follow will shape our lives.
So be careful what you love. Corinth needed a harsh grace to jolt them out of their blind adoration of all things impressive.
So that they could notice and learn to love all things true and honorable and just and pure and lovely and kind. commendable and praiseworthy.
Well, that harsh grace came in the form Of a sarcastic apostle who was willing to appear the fool in order to win the fool. This brings us to verses 22 through 33, in which we see the content of Paul's boast as well as the strategy of Paul's boast. You see, Paul had a trick up his sleeve. He wasn't simply going to try and out-brag the false teachers. You think you're strong and confident and talented?
Well, look at how strong and confident and talented I am. That's not what Paul did. When Paul started his boast, he started boasting not about the things Corinth was impressed with. but rather about the things Corinth should have been impressed with. And so, the second lesson we learned from this passage is that we miss out on God's blessings when we don't value what God values.
Paul's boast begins in verse 22. Are they Hebrews?
Those false teachers you love so much, so am I. Are they Israelites?
So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham?
So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I'm a better one. And then suddenly, right in the middle of verse 23, Paul turns the tables on Corinth by boasting about things that Corinth did not value. I'm a better servant of Christ than those pretenders, Paul says, because.
I went to a better rhetoric school than they did? No. Because I've raised more funds than they have. No? Because I have a greater following, more subscribers, I can plant bigger churches than they can.
No. Paul says, I'm a better servant of Christ because verse 23, I have had far more imprisonments, countless beatings, and often been near death. And then Paul begins to enumerate the specifics. Five times I received 40 lashes, less one. Three times was beaten with rods.
Once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. And on and on he goes, listing nothing but how much he has suffered in the cause of Christ. Corinth didn't care about that. They rather disdained those weaknesses. Those experiences didn't make Corinth's list of most desirable traits to see in an apostle.
But Paul goes on. A night and a day I was adrift at sea, on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, robbers, my own people, Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers. He goes on in toil and hardship through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Paul is not seeking Corinth's sympathy, nor is he seeking their approval. If he were, this isn't the way to do it.
He's seeking to turn their world upside down because they've got it all backwards. Paul's validation as a spiritual authority, as an apostle of Jesus Christ, lies not in what he has accomplished, but in what he has suffered. One pastor put it this way. When the apostle wanted to prove himself to be an extraordinary minister, he proved that he had been an extraordinary sufferer. And the cumulative effect of Paul's resume, hopefully, began to take its toll on the Corinthians' sensibilities as they realized what fools we've been.
We've been determining our allegiances by all the wrong standards. We've been following what we have loved. But we've been loving the wrong things. Paul then continues by demonstrating the genuineness of his love. for the church.
Where the false teachers were flaunting their letters of commendation, as we've previously observed. Paul's letter of commendation was the church itself. There was even a church in Corinth because Paul had loved aliens and strangers enough to go and preach to them and convert them and establish them in the faith. And not only in Corinth, but all over Asia Minor. And so he affirms his great love for the church in verse 28, saying: And apart from all that suffering I just mentioned, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.
Where the church hurts, Paul hurts. Where the church is under attack, Paul, verse 29, is indignant and ready to fight the wolves no matter the cost. That's the sign of a true apostle. And so the traits that Corinth disdained Paul for were the very traits that confirmed his apostleship. The things that should have impressed them and drawn them to Paul and his teaching had been devalued and underappreciated by the Corinthian church to their great shame and loss as they wasted time flitting about with impressive but false teachers.
Paul concludes his boast here. with one final account that serves to highlight his weakness and God's power. It's the amazing story of Paul being trapped in Damascus and hunted by the authorities and having to be let down from the city wall through a window in a basket under cover of darkness. And this is the climax of Paul's boast.
Now, children in Sunday school hear this story for the first time and probably think how brave and daring Paul must have been, dangling out of a window in a basket, escaping from the authorities. But actually, Paul is not bragging about his daring exploits, but about his weaknesses. Remember, that's the theme. This story is, in fact, the capstone of the list of weaknesses. Paul's boasting ends not with a miraculous intervention of God to rescue him or some amazing display of courage at the gallows, it ends with a rather mundane escape in a basket.
A scene that really makes Paul look sort of silly and humiliated and weak, not successful. In his commentary on this passage, Trent Castow has observed a parallel between Paul's basket incident in Damascus and a tradition that would have been well known in first century Rome. It was the practice of corona moralis. The Corona Morales was the highest honor that could be awarded to a Roman soldier. It was given to the first man over the wall in a siege.
Would you like to be that man? Of course, the honor was typically given posthumously. for obvious reasons.
However, some soldiers would survive the ordeal.
Now because of the unlikelihood of survival, if a man survived, he had to travel to Rome and swear an oath to the gods that he truly was the first man over the wall before he could be awarded the honor of Corona Morales. Paul had been sent by the Jewish authorities to quell Christianity in Damascus, to persecute the church and essentially take the city for the Pharisees' cause. But instead of taking the city, Paul himself was taken by the Lord as he was converted on the road to Damascus. He went to persecute, he became the persecuted. Interestingly, Paul, just like those Roman soldiers who survived being the first over the wall, takes an oath in verse 31.
and before telling the story of his wall scaling at Damascus. Only instead of scaling up the wall in victory, Paul is scaling down the wall as a fugitive on the run from the authorities. You see, it's a story of weakness. Paul's weakness. But a story that demonstrates Paul's sincerity and authenticity as it shows his willingness to suffer for the cause of Christ.
That's the deal. That's the call of God in Christ. Not to be praised and crowned by the world for your service to him. but to suffer disrepute. and persecution, and verse 28, the daily pressure of anxiety.
Paul had demonstrated these undeniable signs of true apostleship. But because Corinth failed to value these godly traits, they were missing out on the blessing of Paul's ministry. By Corinthian standards, Paul was weak. But Corinth loved strength.
So they followed people whom they considered to be strong. Only they did so. To their great spiritual harm, because they were not evaluating strength as God evaluates it. They did not value that which God values and thus were missing out on God's richest blessings. As we think through what the application of this passage is for us.
I think it's helpful for us to stop and ask, what was it? In the Corinthian heart that made these early Christians so enamored with impressive, confident, boastful people. They were measuring good teaching and shepherding and church life all wrong, but why? Why do they not love what God loves and value what God loves? values.
Why do we do that? I think at the heart of the matter is sinful man's tendency to love. Self above all. We love self-gratification, self-promotion, self-sufficiency, self-centeredness, self-righteousness. We don't love self-denial.
and anything that feels like or looks like self-denial. We don't like it in ourselves. We don't like it in those we choose to follow. And so Paul's insistence on boasting in his Weakness doesn't resonate with us. apart from grace.
to admire selflessness in others. We have to concede that selflessness is beautiful and virtuous. And if we can see that, we make ourselves morally obligated to being selfless. Do we recognize, do we organize ourselves? Our life.
around self. as a substitute for God. The telltale sign of this faulty orientation is that we find it difficult to delight in dependence on God. We find it difficult to delight in dependence upon God, particularly when circumstances and people are beyond our control. In other words, Selfishness doesn't know how to boast in weakness because it doesn't like having to rely on anything or anyone outside of self, including God.
The first and foremost application of this passage of scripture, then, is humility. And this really has been the recurring theme throughout Paul's two letters to this dysfunctional church, hasn't it? Right out of the gate, back in the very first chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul declares that God uses weak, unimpressive people and means to accomplish his most glorious purposes precisely because it brings him glory.
So that no human being might boast in the presence of God, Paul says. in 1 Corinthians 1.29. If we insist on producing impressive results, They capture the world's attention. and garner its praise, we're missing the point. God never calls us to self-promotion.
But always to radical self-denial and humility and delight in making much of him and of his Christ. What you love determines who you follow. and who you follow determines where you end up. Beloved, our loves And allegiances will cause us. To be either enslaved and taken in by impressive but ruinous wolves in sheep's clothing.
Or liberated and delighting in a God who takes weakness and turns it into strength. Be careful what you love. It will determine the very course of your life. Let's pray.
Lord, not unto us, not unto us, but to your name. Give glory. for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. Amen.
