Sermon Bible Commentary
2 Corinthians 12:9
The Quietness of True Power.
Paul speaks in these verses of his own weakness and his thorn in the flesh. He says that he glories in his infirmity, and that in his weakness God had manifested His strength, as though he had been the empty channel which God filled. He teaches us in these words a lesson which we have great need to learn, and it is the quietness of true power.
I. All true power is constructive power. What is the power of Christ? To renew men's lives; to give the new heart; to produce new virtues. The destructive ministry even of evil is not necessarily a constructive ministry of good. You may destroy evil habits; you cannot give a new heart.
II. Quiet power is a wise power. Everything depends upon adaptation. A sentence may save a soul; a word fitly spoken may never be forgotten. That is always true power, the quiet word, the quiet manner, the spirit that knows that atmosphere is everything.
III. Quiet power is a beautiful power. There is a power that we must obey, but there is no beauty in it, nothing attractive in it. But there is another power that is beautiful. Such a power is that which we exercise at home. The sceptre is full of jewels that are rich in loveliness, held in a mother's hand.
IV. Quiet power is a Christlike power. We read again and again in the New Testament that all power is given to Christ. Yet it seems to me as if the light broke upon the world without men knowing it. When Christ was there, everything began to change; the atmosphere changed. So it is with the Christian man: "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength."
V. Quiet power is lasting. It is so in all the aspects of life in the prophetic or in the warning and reproving aspect.
VI. Quiet power is a terrible power.
VII. Quiet power is the Spirit's power: "Ye shall receive power after the Holy Ghost is come upon you."
W. M. Statham, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxv., p. 99.
I. "My grace is sufficient for thee." With his infirmity hindering him, the great Apostle was to go forth among the Gentiles. Day by day there was to be in him this inward struggle. Christ said to him, "My grace is sufficient for thee. Thou mayest fail, but it shall never fail. By suffering thou shalt be raised, and taught, and purified. Fear not, then: My grace is sufficient for thee. I know thee, I know thy trials, I know Myself, better than thou canst."
II. But we must not for a moment limit our thoughts of His dealings with us to any such purpose as this: merely to compensate us for trials, merely to hold us up through our way, merely to minister to us grace sufficient for us. God has not put the meanest Christian into His world and into His Church only to be held up, only to be rescued from falling, only to escape the wrath to come; but He has put every one of us here to serve and glorify Him, to contribute an active share to the great testimony which shall rise, and is ever rising, to Him, to His faithfulness, His purity, His righteousness, His glory, as from all His works, so in the highest and noblest degree from His Church, the highest and noblest of His works. "My grace is sufficient to enable thee for the work which I have set thee to do, sufficient to enable thee, in spite of the trial, yes and by means of the trial, to bring forth fruit to My glory." "My strength is made perfect in weakness." It is His purpose with all His people that they should work for Him in life and life's duties, not in their own strength, but in His; that their bearing up in their lifelong conflict and then issuing forth into glorious victory should be seen and felt at every step to be not of themselves, but of Him. And for this purpose it is that He sends to them hindrances, trials, infirmities, thorns in their way, that their own pride, and strength, and stoutness of heart, and firmness of resolve may be broken down, that they may not walk in a light of their own kindling and congratulate themselves on the brightness of their path, but may toil through darkness and disappointment, through briers and through tears, to the sunshine of the everlasting hills, where the Sun of righteousness may light them to the work of life.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. vii., p. 211.
I. After the fervours of the first love are abated, and after the sweet freshness has passed from the actings and strivings of the new-born soul, there often comes a coldness and a pause. The young soul, new to the ways of grace, does not understand, is bewildered, discouraged, in danger of falling into a practical unbelief. But the Lord says, "My grace is sufficient for thee." Your gospel is not any past experience nor any grand deliverance once for all. It is a present potency which will control all other powers, a present wisdom which will make a path of safety through all perplexities, a present love which will enfold and shelter you even if you stand amid a thousand griefs and fears.
II. A little farther on we meet with one whose beginning has long gone by. You had a calm and blissful time then; but now there has come a chilling and weakening change in your present mood it may seem almost a desolating change. The quickest and best way of recovery is the way of the text. The Lord is saying to you also, "My grace is sufficient for thee." Take hold of that, and you are safe. Keep fast hold of that, acting in everything like one who believes it true, and ere long the health and joy of other days will come back, and the roots of your faith will grip the soil again.
III. The softening shadow of the text will come over the soul that is in trouble. Let every sufferer, whether by the body, or the mind, or the circumstances, hear for himself and gauge all his trouble while he hears; then let him apply the sure word of promise to its lengths, and breadths, and depths, and heights; then let him carry it home to the aged, the sick, the feeble, and to all whom it may concern, as the word of a God who cannot lie, as the assurance of a Saviour who cannot but pity and help, as the title to a legacy of which they are all made heirs, if they will only claim and inherit, as a shelter for every path, an assuagement for every sorrow, a sweet soul-secret for life and for death to every trusting soul, however troubled: "My grace is sufficient for thee."
A. Raleigh, Quiet Resting Places, p. 201
References: 2 Corinthians 12:9. J. Vaughan, Sermons,6th series, p. 13, Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxii., No. 1287; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 309; G. Calthrop, Pulpit Recollections,p. 162; A. Reed, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 489; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 337; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iii., p. 350; Obbard, Plain Sermons,p. 164; A. Macleod, Days of Heaven upon Earth,p. 78; S. Macnaughton, Real Religion and Real Life,p. 108.