Paul Upside-Down
286 | “That DoesN’T Make Any Sense”
Live the Upside-Down Life
What does real strength look like in the kingdom of God? We live in a world obsessed with a scorecard of independence, power, polish, and visible success. But in this episode, we dive into 2 Corinthians to look at Paul’s completely inverted, upside-down life. From the shocking historical context of a Roman triumphal procession — where we discover we are actually the captured slaves walking behind the Conqueror — to the fragile reality of being a literal “shoebox” holding a priceless treasure, Paul flips our ideas of success completely on their head. We explore how to stop obsessing over “fixing the jar” and learn to embrace our thorns, our cracks, and our weaknesses so that Christ’s power can fill all things.
Takeaways
The Big Idea: Grace turns our lives upside-down by freeing us to embrace weakness, sacrifice, and self-giving so that Christ’s power and glory can shine through us.
This Week's Challenge: Identify a current weakness, physical limitation, or frustrating trial in your life, and explicitly hand it over to God in prayer — shifting your focus away from trying to make yourself look invincible and toward letting His grace be sufficient.
-
Welcome and Theme
Bryan: That does not make any sense. I don't get that at all. I still you still not convinced me that this all makes sense Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to the Bible Geeks podcast. I'm Bryan Schiele,
Ryan: I'm Ryan joy
Bryan: and thanks so much, everyone, for tuning in. What does real strength look like in the kingdom of God? We live in a world obsessed with status and power, polish and self-protection. But Paul's life looked almost upside down. He was beaten, but not broken.
Weak yet powerful. He was a slave, yet he was free.
Ryan: so in this episode we dive into 2nd Corinthians to explore Paul's inverted life as bond servant suffering Apostle earthen vessel and joyful self giver discovering how God's grace flips our priorities and teaches us that Christ's power shines brightest through surrendered weOkay, so we're going to talk about this upside-down kingdom, but let's talk about being upside-down first.
Upside Down Rides
Ryan: Have you ever, uh, have you ever enjoyed, not just done it, but enjoyed being on like an amusement park ride that flips you upside down? Maybe it's a roller coaster or one of those things that just absolutely, you know, spins around to where you're hanging or anything like that.
What's your position on being in the position of upside down?
Bryan: [laughs] I was just about to say, "What is my position on the position of upside down?" I love the position of upside down. As a kid, I always liked roller coasters. I was like the ones that flipped upside down. I've never really had an issue with roller coasters that go wacky and wild and flip you all around and everything like that.
I've always been good with it. So, I know people in my family who aren't and who feel like needing to take Dramamine whenever they watch a roller coaster going upside down. But what about you? Are you a flipper?
Ryan: I'm all about the flipping. Yeah, I love it. I love there's one at Disneyland, the California Adventure, the Impossibles coaster.
Bryan: the
Ryan: like that, that loop. Yeah, the Incredicoaster that one goes upside down. I said Impossibles. Yeah, you got it. Incredibles is what I meant. You just, good thing you're reading my brain.
Corinthian Expectations
Ryan: But when we get into this idea of like our whole lives are flipped upside down and everything we think we know is upside down and you know, up is down.
Yeah, Paul gives us a very different way of looking at the world and we see this all the way back through the Gospels as Jesus talks about his kingdom and we want to focus in on 2nd Corinthians as a uniquely challenging letter that takes the Corinthians expectations where they're thinking hey, we want a teacher who is, you know, taking money from us who is eloquent who is very successful in life who is showing us in their power and they're visual earthly attributes something that we can admire and Paul says, I think you've mistaken what the kingdom of Christ is.
And so he acknowledges that he is weak and he is some of the things that these false teachers are saying but he does not agree that those things are deficiencies rather. He says this is what it means in a cross-shaped
Bryan: Yes. Yeah. Well, let's get into some deep thoughts on 2 Corinthians and this whole idea of the upside down nature of Paul's description here.
Worldly Scorecard
Bryan: So, as we tend to like to do, we are going to start on the surface and then dig a little bit deeper as we go. And I think, like you hit the nail on the head here that Paul's really getting at something different in 2 Corinthians and lots of other books, actually. on the surface here, we're talking about, I guess, kind of like the world's scorecard.
Like, how does the world keep score of things in life? And, you know, we've got this whole idea like strength means independence. Like, we're a strong, independent person. And when we get to the point of leadership, like leadership means this impressive, you know, show of force in front. I think this is kind of what you were talking about, the Corinthians looking for and Paul not really living up to in their minds.
And like success means like visible results and of course weakness is all about failure and we don't want any part of weakness and the Corinthian culture is stuck in that. They can't see past that kind of idea. And I don't know, I think that just resonates with me. Like on the surface, it really does seem like things should look successful and things should be impressive and,
I mean, that's not really what the church is, right?
Ryan: you said this is how the world sees things. And that's right. But and these kinds of ways of thinking are so sneaky the way they creep into me and creep into us and we start to have insecurities about not looking a certain way or start to be self-conscious or start to strive for the wrong goals in the way we do Church, you know, or the way we preach or the way we try to project ourselves rather than seeing this thing that Paul is trying to get across.
So this surface is very appropriate that we're talking about being on the surface because that's what this whole thing is. It's very surface is very, you know, what you see on the outside you know, we went we talked about those class barriers here not long ago and different kinds of ways that we see externally and start to judge the face, you know, to look on the face as with that word for partiality.
Boasting in Weakness
Ryan: So I think that's a lot of what we see on the surface, but maybe we could just go below the surface of that and just a little bit just just go into the next level below that and Paul is acknowledging that he is afflicted and perplexed and poor and he gives all these long lists about how he's persecuted and struck down and he talks about being anxious and unimpressive in speech and in some ways he is physically bearing these weaknesses, but that's not the whole story that he wants us to
Bryan: Yeah. So you're in 2 Corinthians 4 and, you know, this is kind of alluding to this picture that we'll maybe talk about in a little bit about the jars of clay and how we're just fragile human beings, right? And that's who we are. That's what we acknowledge about ourselves as images of God made from the dust.
We are not super apostles as he would, you know, try to compare himself to others in other places. We're just servants of the Lord. We're humble and all the ways that that shows up. And Paul is starting to present a list of things that do not sound like attributes if you're on the surface. They do. These do not sound like qualities or things that you would aspire to.
And in a way, do you feel like Paul is kind of throwing back to the Beatitudes here in some of this? Like he's making this upside down connection to what Jesus said the blessed life was. The blessed life being, you know, those who hunger and thirst, those who are poor, you know, the people who are who are the least likely to have what we would qualify or classify as the blessed life.
That's what Paul's acknowledging here in his own existence. Like I'm afflicted, you know, I'm confused. I've been struck down and in all of these things, you know, he is saying like they haven't broken me. I'm not overwhelmed or overcome by what I've gone through, but he's starting to hold up his weaknesses as a strength, which is yeah, not it's so weird.
Like what? Why would you do
Ryan: even he says that even he says he calls it so you're talking in chapter 4 one of the lists he really unloads with this what some people call his fools speech because he says I'm talking like a fool here in chapter 11 and gives even more and to your point about the Beatitudes and maybe the whole of the teaching of Christ.
He says are they verse 23 of chapter 11? Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one and then he's like I'm talking like a madman. I mean, this is dumb what I'm doing. I don't even know that how do you make this argument? He's like but but I'm going to tell you that it's with more imprisonments. That's what I'm boasting it with countless Beast countless beatings and often near death and you know, 40 lashes and all this stuff.
He's going to talk about shipwrecks and danger and and then inner troubles as well. I mean he gives a very long list there and it is a strange thing to hold up but he wants us to see not only that he is a partaker or having fellowship with Jesus in these things but also that through all of that he has this incredible joy and gratitude and you know, it's not it's not like everything is happy.
He does not say that.
Cruciform Strength
Ryan: I mean, he's clearly heartbroken a lot but there is this lasting kind of abiding winsome quality that he has this piece this purpose and and he feels that he is on the right track and he's spiritually strong and he is reflecting like you said all of those teachings of Jesus and Sermon on the mountain elsewhere, but even more so maybe to go to the final layer of this to go deeper still everything goes back to the cross the wisdom that he's holding up is a cruciform wisdom that he says look if we're going to say that this is what victory looks like this is what success this is what our King looks like royalty all of this the one who was rich was made poor for us and how can we say it's wrong it's not an apostle like characteristic for me to be made poor for you for me to suffer for him and partake in those those same kind of difficulties for a greater
Bryan: I like struggle with this so much because I've heard people say and I don't think they intended to say it this way or make it sound this way, but I have heard people hold up these like surface level qualities as like a mark of a successful church. I'll just use the church as an example, right?
Like well, you know a church is successful if you know, they have a certain kind of website or they have a certain kind of building or they have a you know, fill in the blank, whatever they're doing this number of services and these number of sermons and this amount of teaching and like, you know that we have this standard that we've I don't know built or adopted or like just sort of were handed off by tradition from someone before us.
But like we have this standard of like what we call success and how we define that and I think what this conversation helps me to see is that the things that actually look weak can maybe not always but can represent the most strong and powerful examples of being like Christ than you could ever imagine.
Like what if you know a church is meeting in a library somewhere, you know, is that a strong church? That doesn't it doesn't mean it's not, you know and things like this. I just I feel like this would have been probably the issue du jour of Paul's day, you know, just like anything that we might deal with or struggle with in terms of trying to define success.
I think Paul is just helping us to see all of that needs to get flipped on its head and like you said viewed through the lens of the cross and if you think this is strong if it's if it's not rooted in the fundamentals of who Jesus is and what he's built and what he's allowed for us to become then it really isn't strong.
No matter how you know, how many quote unquote strong super apostles or you know, super Christians are out there doing these things. It's not a definition of strength.
Ryan: It's not a
definition of strength and it's not the goal. It's not what we should look for to see are we doing are we on the right track and every time we go back to the cross it is it's so familiar right and that makes it sometimes challenging to have breakthroughs to new depths of understanding but it is the most important thing that we can look to to start to be our our model or what it looks like to to be on the right track to follow God love others do all the things to be on track with our mission and so I you know he says are they servants of Christ well that's what I want to be and so then when he wants to prove that he is a servant of Christ this is what it looks like it doesn't mean we're glorifying suffering I don't think that's what Paul is doing but he's saying to do these things to allow these things to happen for a purpose that honors Christ is not diminishing in any way his service to Christ rather it is illustrating what it looks like sometimes to walk with Jesus and we're all gonna have our own version of that I'm not gonna probably get shipwrecked very many times in my life but but if I'm not sacrificing if I'm not finding myself spending myself in this flesh difficulties will come and to be a servant of Christ is to turn those difficulties over to Christ and use them for his glory and so that's what we're gonna see and in a minute we'll look at some images to start to unpack all of this but you know I mean like I think we can go too far one way or another like oh so you know I should I should suffer more well it's not about trying to suffer it's about how you view your life and your suffering and you're all the things that you're trying to be and how we view one another and what the metric of success is in the kingdom the people that are gonna you know have those weighty crowns in heaven ifthere are differences between us it won't be the you know the people who received all the glory here it'll be people who were doing the work of Christ humbly consistently through whatever difficulty came and and the Lord alone
saw
Bryan: time you do go back to the cross and you do align yourself with him, you know, I'm thinking about like when Paul says here in chapter 13, he says in verse 4, "For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God for we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God."
So it's not that like suffering and weakness should be my goal necessarily like that's that's the end all be all but when I do when I do find myself weak or when I do acknowledge that yes, I am weak then I'm aligned and I'm connected to the one who was weak, but that became power, you know, and and so I feel like this is just it's lifting up the heads of people who are whose might be sorrowful because of their weaknesses and then Paul of course here.
He's defending himself more than anything in 2nd Corinthians. Just trying to hold him up to this standard is totally unfair and totally misguided and so I think for me when I feel weak, I can connect with Christ and also when I start to look at other people and I try to define success or try to see in in them some some level of strength.
I need to probably be looking for things that look more like weakness than actually look like strength. So all of this is really just flipping it on its head in some deeper ways and seeing that that weakness is not what you think it is on the surface,
Ryan: and it's it's helping us to trust in a strength beyond ourselves which is a consistent message of all the Bible but thinking of Paul you know think of the word to the Christian soldier you know be strong in his strength Ephesians 610 or think of the encouragement that and the conversation we had about Romans 7 and Romans 8 what's the difference between Romans 7 and Romans 8 we're not trusting in our own strength we're trusting in Christ spirit and in the power of God to work in us and you know we could keep going and unpacking this but as we see our weakness then we find power as we rest in him we our prayer lives come alive our leaning into his wisdom rather than our own becomes this sturdy confidence in in in our lives and everything changes when we see him
Paint a Picture Segment
Ryan: as our strength
Bryan: you know as Paul is getting us to this this deeper understanding of what true strength looks like and how weakness is not what we think it is on the surface. It is helpful. I think that throughout this book he basically gives us all of these pictures of this upside downness of life in the kingdom and and life as a as a human here on Earth.
And so let's maybe pivot away from deep thoughts into another segment that we like to call paint a picture. So some happy little trees here. We're thinking about this picture that we have throughout the scripture about weakness and you know, we were talking about from the Beatitudes.
Triumphal Captive
Bryan: I think some of these things are going to play into into these comparisons in chapter 2 Paul in verse 14 leads us into this triumphal procession, which is kind of a weird thought process maybe for us in in a modern sense. What is what is Paul doing here in 2nd Corinthians chapter 2? Maybe it'd be helpful just to read it actually verses 14 through 16 where he says, but thanks be to God who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere where we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved among those who are perishing to one a fragrance from death to death and to the other a fragrance from life to life who is sufficient for these things and so some smelly processions, I guess going on.
What is he talking about
Ryan: so this is a Roman practice that the Romans would whenever they conquered a city you know there's actually famous relief that has Titus leading a procession after conquering Jerusalem but whenever they would conquer someone they would have this weird parade that they would have where everybody I mean everybody came out they would build scaffolding so that everybody could see it and there was a particular order which we don't need to go into all of it but there would be the the King the conqueror whoever it was the general and then there would be the captives that have been defeated and are now slaves and they're being led in this procession and then there's also this fragrant you know aroma that's being sent out so that everybody can know this is the sweet smell of victory that's going out among the the people all over the place and at the end of the procession then many of the captives would actually be killed or in the mercy of the general or whoever it was they would be spared and this word for leads us in triumphal procession actually means to be one of the captives that's being led and so this
Bryan: the upside downness.
Ryan: that's the upside-downness because we are more than conquerors right Romans 8 says and so that is also true we are conquerors through Christ but here that's not what Paul is bringing out he is a slave of Christ he was captured by Christ he is under Christ's control we see in chapter five you know the love of Christ constrains us it's a different kind of captor but he's willing to die for Christ and indeed and in a way has died to himself so that Christ can reign he has been defeated by the love of Jesus by the goodness of Jesus not by you know the tyranny and violence of the Lord and so he's being led and he accepts that he is just a captive he is just a servant a slave that is walking behind Christ and the fragrance that he's sending is you know for some people it's the fragrance of death because they are the king has won and they are going to be defeated but he wants it to be the fragrance of life and so he's shedding abroad the knowledge of Christ as he goes about not for money not as a peddler and he as he says in verse 17 but as somebody who is a servant of
Bryan: This feels like a challenge for me to wrestle with because I show up to this passage thinking that I should be a part of this story that I'm not I show up to this passage thinking I should be like on the generals team, you know, I should be the the one who is on the horse the one who's being celebrated as as you know, someone who's doing the work with the king like he's the head and I'm part of his body right?
But no, actually where I stand in this procession isthe captive. I'm the one who's been taken captive and that feels wrong. I don't know why this is so difficult for me to put my self into the shoes of the one who has been taken captive, but it does certainly feel like the wrong application of the story like I shouldn't be there.
I shouldn't be down there as a slave. But again, how many times have we you know, have we thought about the idea of being either a slave to Satan and the evil forces or being a slave to Christ and I would much rather be under that light and easy yoke of bondage and burden of the one who loves me rather than the one who hates me.
But even just that idea of like being a slave to anything I buck against that but that I totally I see it. I realized that it's there but yeah, I don't know it do you do you naturally like find yourself in that position? I guess that's part of why this is upside down because it shouldn't make sense.
Right?
Ryan: it's it is very difficult and throughout history a lot of interpreters have not taken this word to mean what it actually means because we so want to view ourselves as the triumphant ones rather than the conquered ones this is a picture that I find really helpful in counteracting a particular view of Christianity that is just you know all over the place of and not not just like health and wealth prosperity gospel but just well-branded you be a victor to kind of Christianity right like you know just like feel great be exultant I can do all things through him who strengthens me rejoice always all good passages these are Bible passages too but like if that's all we get and we never see ourselves as under the control of someone else as surrendering to a greater a greater victor that we will now make ourselves the slaves of you know we're missing something about the relationship we have with Jesus but he is our friend he is our Savior but he is also our Lord and that's the word that's used more often about our
Jars of Clay Treasure
Ryan: relationship with maybe where we go to the second picture here where Paul in chapter 4 is talking in this really familiar verse about being treasures inside of jars of clay and you know this again for me thinking about going back all the way to the garden and when God made man from the dust of the earth and formed him and breathed within him the spirit and filled him with with his breath of life that like we of course understand that we're fragile and but boy, don't we just want to think that we're invincible at some some stage in our life like some some area of our life when you know, maybe we're in our 20s or whatever and we just think we're invincible and then suddenly I was watching these memes.
Bryan: It was like people it was like parkour. I don't know if you remember parkour, but like, you know people people jumping off of buildings and stuff was like this is how you are in your 20s and like people leaping from like three-story buildings and like taking off running and then it was like it cuts to a guy in his 40s who's like trying to get out of the back of a bed of a truck and it's like, you know, just like gingerly positioning himself and then he winds up like spraining his ankle or something like that.
It's like yes, that is what happens when you turn 40 you realize you are a jar of clay and very very fragile and breakable.
Ryan: yeah we are I love that example yeah we become more and more aware of our feebleness as time goes on I just I had a kid over here a little toddler that can get me to do anything he's the kid of one of our one of our deacons and he was wanting to do flips onto the couch and so I did some flips onto the couch with him and one of them I landed on this like hard edge right in the back of my back and and his mom was like that work out well
Bryan: Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: as I used to be I used to do a lot of flips but a little weird as you get to be a 40-something year old guy but yeah this idea of the treasures in jars of clay the focus is not on the jar of clay the focus is on the treasure and the jar of clay is important in getting this the sense of this picture but we tend to make our whole lives sometimes about the jar of clay and making the most beautiful jar and the like can I sturdy up this jar a little bit and look this jar is gonna fall apart it is just it is just mud that's been shaped and its job is to hold it I compare it to like whenever people hide some treasure inside like a shoebox under their bed or something you know I'm the shoebox there is you know there's an engagement ring that I'm waiting to give in that shoebox but I'm just the I'm just the shoebox and so then we want to understand what the treasure is and he says it's the knowledge of Christ and maybe we can unpack that a little bit but we're holding or trying to let people see the surpassing power that belongs to God and not to us by walking around recognizing I'm I'm pottery but there is something super special that for some reason God has entrusted me with being a pot that gets to
Bryan: Well, and it's the comparison right? It's and I think why Paul is even bringing this up is like look at me versus what I get to tell people about versus what I get to to show demonstrated in my life. Like I'm I'm confused. I I'm persecuted. I'm going through all of this stuff afflicted in every way but not crushed like but then he you know talks about how he's carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies like to be able to be and we talked about it in the last episode right about unity and how in our in our example of unity and love and humility and gentleness and everything that we can you know display for each other and with each other like we become that image into the world of a reflection of of Christ of his body.
We become his body in the world and we know where Paul is going with this is like who am I to be even able to do that? I'm like a you know, I'm a piece of xerox paper. Like I don't there's nothing special about me, but I'm on me is written or contains this this amazing truth that I get to share with people.
It's like to realize and recognize his limitations and frailty versus what he gets to share with other people. It's such a real thing. Like can you imagine having seen the risen Lord having experienced the blinding light on the on the road and having now like given everything of yourself to people who don't appreciate you who don't understand you and to know every day that like they reject you.
Well, they rejected Jesus. So you're in good company, you know, you're sharing in that in that work, but just to understand like who am I to even be given this I'm the I'm the least of all apostles. He would say like I I'm the chiefest of sinners. He would call himself and so like if if Paul was not able to boast or be, you know, accomplished just to know Jesus and to be able to share the truth about Jesus with other people like what gives us the right to think that we're anything special too.
And that's where passages like this are just super helpful for me. It's like it's a small thing who we are compared to the bigness of what God has let us let us become.
Ryan: did a lesson a while back where I ended up at the end I took verses like this always carrying in the body the death of Jesus and I put them into a cross stitch font and made of put them in a frame and I was just talking about you know we don't put these passages up on the wall very often
Bryan: Right,
Ryan: you know we don't this is not these are not the passages there's so many of them right you know whoever is a servant of Jesus will be persecuted and you know there's
Bryan: and now I want to do that. Put
Ryan: difficult ideas and again it's not about glorifying suffering but if Paul is carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus can be manifested in his body then he is always going to be thinking of the beauty of service the beauty of sacrifice what love really looks like and how there is this conquering that comes this is victory that comes from it where you and I are now talking about Paul and able to see from the way he lived and the way he taught that something radical has changed this man from the natural way everybody else on earth lives and that is the point and that's how the life of Jesus and comes to be seen in us because we see that this is the path to the victory and that goes back to what you read earlier 2nd Corinthians 13 4 & 5 that he made himself weak but then he was victorious and we to have that fellowship with him in our weakness and I mean it it just is a lesson that in our marriages and our parenting and our service to others and our relationships with really mean nasty people in the world and are you know all over the place if we can just keep coming back to this and see the beauty of this kind of life there is something that people start to witness in it that shows the life of Jesus or spreads abroad the fragrant aroma of the knowledge of Christ
Thorn in the Flesh
Bryan: I think maybe to demonstrate that even more he goes on in our third picture here in chapter 12 to talk about the thorn in the flesh and maybe this was the one we were all thinking about this whole time because this is probably the quintessential thing that Paul brings up as like his messenger of Satan who he's received whatever this thorn in the flesh is that has taught him to be humble to prevent him from being prideful.
And it's because of this that he winds up saying, you know, I'll I'll boast in weakness. I'm I'll I'll be so much more glad in my weaknesses because that is where I'm strong. That's where Christ's strength is sufficient for me even when I'm weak. And so this is again, like every time you talked about it's not like boasting in weakness or it's not like, you know, it's not like thinking that weakness is like a goal.
We should have, you know, true. Absolutely. I don't think Paul wanted this thorn in the flesh, but once it showed up, he learned to embrace it and that was a learning process that it took for him and do not just think that we're going to flip the switch and suddenly, oh, it's going to be okay. Like it may take us quite a while to to settle into the weaknesses and frailties that we
Ryan: was just talking to somebody Sunday night that has a degenerative disease that is you know already really affecting her and and I was just blown away by her attitude and her husband's attitude and you know here she is she can't a lot of times she can't feed herself her kids have to feed her she there's a lot of things that she just can't do but she kept talking about how God is using it to teach the kids show his glory how he's delivering her through it and you know man I I saw power in her weakness and that's what we're talking about and you know you said well Paul isn't impressive and that's well stated and true and if we start glorifying him we've we've got a whole other problem but I think also what he's saying is imitate me as I imitate Christ like I am a better servant of Christ than these people because of the very thing that you think disqualifies me he is impressive as a servant of Christ in as much as he is willing to serve utterly and to not because he has amazing gifts he is a tremendous writer and thinker and theologian and all of this but that's not what's most amazing about him what's most what I most appreciate is all the things that point me to the cross Christ and how he lowers himself in love for the sake of others and is willing to do whatever it takes to bring that just someone else might come to know the grace and love that saved him and that's the lesson we've got to get his grace is sufficient his power is made perfect in weakness so that's why we gladly boast in our weakness that's why we try to look at our realties and our problems and our difficulties differently whether that's me we can make a list of all the kinds of things not just physical ailments it's you know it's all the things that feel small and weak in us if we can give them to the Lord and devote ourselves to him as slaves of Christ then he can turn those into power through his
Bryan: Yeah. I'm even thinking there above and beyond just the physical limitations like Paul's obviously talking about here. There's there's also that idea that like I want to be a different part of the body than what I am currently able to do, you know, like I think of so many people who even in their even in their age or their circumstance of their life, like maybe there was a time where they were like hosting and hospitable and like, you know, opening up their homes and having these big and then like at some point, they're just, you know, they're there.
They moved into a assisted living facility or they're like in a, you know, totally different season of their life and they just can't do what they used to do and they feel like maybe they there are some some kind of a failure in that or whatever. It's like I think sometimes we have the grass is greener on the other side mentality when it comes to our service in the kingdom.
Instead of leaning into what we can do what it's time for to do now, maybe maybe we find ourselves too often thinking about what it would be like if we had different gifts or abilities or if oh, if this wasn't a part of my life, then I would be able to do more and just to realize that like these weaknesses, whatever they are, can absolutely still be used and leveraged in the kingdom in powerful ways, even if not, you know, to let you do all the things you wish you could do, but even to be able to use those to encourage other people and I just even think about people who, you know, could mentor me in a way that like maybe they weren't able to, you know, do all the things they used to be able to do, but maybe they can help me to see, you know, that that my struggle that I'm dealing with is something that they can connect with to just a lot of these things.
I think it's a it's such a powerful way of of realizing that weakness is not actually the kind of game changer or game ender
Comfort to Comfort Others
Bryan: that we might think that it is.
Ryan: you know that's where he starts the whole book in his opening benediction blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the God of all comfort who comforts us in our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God and that's a lot of comfort but he's he's saying you know pay it forward you had this experience for a reason and you turn to God and now what you received you can pass on and give to others
Bryan: Yeah.
Takeaways and Next Episode
Bryan: Well, this has been really helpful. I think, you know, thinking about Paul and thinking about the way that he describes the upside down nature of the kingdom is, yeah, it's just it's not something we think about very often because we want to think about the victory. We want to think about the the pictures that actually look like success.
But then maybe it's the reason why on the first day of the week, every week we get this opportunity to think about the upside down nature of Christ and the way that he the way that he was victorious, even though it looked like defeat. And that just every day reminds me to reorient my view around Christ and see what he's what he's changing me into.
That
Ryan: what he's changing me into is a good place to end this because that is the heart of this is he is changing us from one degree of glory to another we didn't talk about 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 in that picture of the veil we've talked about that earlier this season but he is transforming us with his power where our weakness can through his grace be made into something different something useful in the service of God maybe it's like the cracks in the in the little jar that we are that showed the treasure through kind of like Kintsugi little little jars and so our weakness is useful to him in those ways
Bryan: That does not make any sense. I don't get that at all. I still you still not convinced me that this all makes sense to me, but I guess this is what grace is all about. It's just it's completely incomprehensible, but completely fills all things and makes makes it all work together. Because if it was up to me and my abilities and up to you and your abilities, we would be would be in big trouble, Ryan.
Ryan: amen
Bryan: Okay, so I am, you know, taking away from this conversation just the the ways that I define success are, you know, are not using the world's scorecard. I'm not going to be using what the world uses to define success. And like we've been talking about here, God is showing up in all the weaknesses and all the cracks and all the ways that that my weaknesses can be used to point towards him and to be be able to show people what this is all really about, because it's not about me.
And that is maybe maybe my biggest takeaway here is that I just have I have so much to deflect. I'm able to deflect in some really powerful ways now, knowing that like not about me, not about my amazing accomplishments. It's all about Christ.
Ryan: I think I'm realizing how much I have to how far I have to go to really start to see these difficulties and weaknesses and trials as opportunities or to see the cross as actually a victory rather than a heartbreak you know I it still just feels so tragic to see even that Paul had to suffer but Paul is saying that's the wrong way to see it and that's the wrong way to see the cross the wrong way to see all of this that that is where the power is and if I can learn to just flip everything upside down and see humble quiet service humble sacrifice difficulty trial walked through faithfully all of these things keeping my focus on the right things that God is going to do something with that and I don't need to invent anything wondrous out of that I don't need to come up with a you know just a creative amazing accomplishment as a legacy God just wants faithful servants who are gonna walk with him and that smallness is where the greatness is
Bryan: Paul and being upside down. In our next episode, we're going to talk about James and how that turns us all inside out. You know, these are just two pairs of episodes that we've wanted to do for a little bit here. Two halves of how the gospel is basically rearranging a person, rearranging the way I think about myself and my weaknesses and what what James is going to do, rearranging how we view our outer works by the faith that is is driving all of that stuff from within us.
So kind of excited about these two episodes together as a pair. Just, you know, turn your head askew at the way you think about things in the way Paul and James kind of deals with grace and the situation in our lives that God changes us all into. So thanks so much, everyone, for tuning in to the Bible Geeks podcast.
You can find us on our website at biblegeeks.fm. Find show notes there as well. Get in touch with us. Reach out to us and talk to us about anything that you have questions about there on our website. And until the next episode, everyone, may the Lord bless you and keep you.