Paul uses such rich language about God’s grace that it’s easy to think he’s simply being poetic or overly optimistic. Even the passages we’ve explored in the last three posts sound far too good to be true.

I believe Paul’s teaching on God’s grace came from a deep intimate experience with God’s grace over many years in all aspects of his personality, life and ministry. Over and over, he experienced God’s abundant overflowing grace to all areas of his life. Over and over, he experienced remarkable strength in the midst of weakness. Over and over, he trained in the energy of God’s grace to renounce the darkest areas of depravity and to embrace Christ’s character and power in his thoughts, feelings, decisions, bodily habits, and relationships. Over and over, he shared with others with stunning life transformation the knowledge of God’s grace, based on his thoughts and experience. Over and over, he saw what God’s limitless, unending, and immeasurably powerful grace could do in his life and others lives.

So Paul’s language was reality, not poetic embellishment.

I believe if any of us could talk Paul, he would say so himself.

You: So you’re saying God’s grace can touch my struggling marriage?
Paul: Not just touch, but overflow within it and transform it!

You: How about my kids and the mess I made raising them?
Paul: Yes, God’s grace can saturate that as well.

You: My career and finances?
Paul Yup.

You: How about my addictions?
Paul: Absolutely! Especially those. God’s grace permeates deeply into the brokenness of our lives.

You: You don’t know how bad my sin is or how deep my shame goes.
Paul: More importantly you need to grasp how boundless God’s grace is. It is far more wonderful and powerful than your worst sin and goes far deeper than your deepest shame. Remember what I wrote” For when I am weak, then I am strong.

You: Wait a minute. Don’t you mean “When I am weak, then he is strong?”
Paul: No, that’s not what I wrote. I wrote, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

That is the crux of Paul’s experience with God’s grace. Because of God’s grace, he could say, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Now you say it, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Yes, because of God’s infinitely strong grace, YOU are strong.

Yet Paul knew that a lot goes between the phrase “For when I am weak” and the phrase “then I am strong.” 

Grace isn’t magic. It doesn’t automatically change you from weak to strong. It doesn’t work like that. As we saw in Titus 2:11-14, grace trains us. It’s like a coach that trains you from weakness to strength.

Grace is God’s present, active power training us for transformed lives in this world.

I’ve mentioned before that I was a competitive swimmer. When I struggled with a particular technique, I would go to the coach so he could train me. But I had to practice. I had to take his coaching and unlearn my deficient technique and learn a more effective one. Over time and with his instruction, I would go from weak to strong.

Similarly, that’s the process that lies between the two phrases based on the passages we’ve explored. The main difference is that God’s grace both trains us and empowers us in that training. It provides every thing we need in every circumstance.

For when I am weak…
…I practice trusting God’s grace is immeasurably sufficient.
…I practice trusting God’s power is perfected in weakness.
…I practice trusting God is powerfully able to overflow all of his infinite …grace upon every aspect of my life, especially the deepest and darkest areas.
…I practice trusting God’s grace provides all sufficiency, in all things, at all times for all good works.
…I practice training in God’s grace to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.
…I practice training in God’s grace to live a self-controlled, upright and godly life.
…I practice training in God’s grace to become part of Jesus’ eternal community of love.
…and as I trust and train, fueled by God’s grace, I am transformed into Jesus’ character and power in this life I am living here and now.
…then I am strong.

When I am weak… <God’s grace is abundantly and powerfully sufficient to save and to train> …then I am strong.