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WEAKNESS IS STRENGTH (3 OF 5)

by Dave Gustavsen

Scripture: Luke 22:39-43, Luke 22:45-46
This content is part of a series.


Weakness Is Strength (3 of 5)
Series: Paradox
Dave Gustavsen
Luke 22:39-46


Good morning. We're taking a few weeks to talk about this idea of ''paradox.'' A paradox is something that, when you first look at it, it appears contradictory or absurd...but then, when you look closer, you realize that it actually makes sense in a way that you never saw before.

For example: how does a pencil look when you put it in a glass of water? It appears crooked, right? That's what our eyes are telling us. But sometimes appearances can be deceiving. And a lot of times, when Jesus taught, this is how it sounded to people. Disjointed. It didn't make sense. But some people stuck around and continued seeking and knocking and asking, and they eventually realized that the words of Jesus were actually more true and more wise than anything they had ever heard.

So the first paradox we looked at was: if you want to find your life, you have to lose it. Last week's paradox was: if you want to be truly free, you have to enter into slavery. And today we come to our third paradox; here it is: if you want to experience true strength, you have to become weak.

You probably know the name Malcolm Gladwell. He's the author of best-selling books like Outliers and The Tipping Point and Blink. His most recent book is called David and Goliath. And he talks about a researcher who was speaking at a donors' meeting of a prominent university. So here was this room filled with successful business people. And this researcher asked how many of them had been diagnosed with a learning disorder. And half the hands went up. Now that's a paradox, right? Because most of us assume that if you're a successful person, you've got above-average intelligence and you probably got 1500 on your SATs. But half the people in this room of successful people had learning disabilities-that's just strange. And I want you to listen to what Malcolm Gladwell wrote about this:

There are two possible interpretations for ...

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