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The big idea

Face the wounds while embracing the win.

Drawing from Second Corinthians 4:16-18, Pastor Bill argues that Christians tend to either deny their wounds (performing a put-together faith while white-knuckling through pain) or despair over them (giving up because life is hard and faith seems not to work). Paul teaches instead that our outer selves are wasting away while our inner selves are being renewed every day, in the present tense, simultaneously. Because believers have already won in Christ, present troubles, however heavy and real, are light in comparison to the eternal glory being produced. The call is to hold both realities together at once, like a coin's two sides seen only in a mirror, the mirror being the cross, and to keep living as faithful "weekday warriors" rather than quitting.

A story from life

Story about competing in a national bowling tournament in 1986 while injured, tied to Olympic qualification hopes

we need to face the wounds while embracing the win

— Pastor Bill Bush

here's what we're gonna see. It's all through scripture

— Pastor Bill Bush

Point 1 of 7

Paul faced opposition from 'super apostles' who claimed his suffering proved God wasn't with him, but his weaknesses were actually part of how he carried out his calling.

Related passage

Point 2 of 7

Our bodies are dying and our spirits are being renewed every day, both in the present tense, at the very same time, not one after the other.

Point 3 of 7

Present troubles are light and momentary compared to the weighty, eternal glory they are producing, so the pain is real but not the final word.

Our hearts ache, but we always have joy

— Pastor Bill Bush

Illustration

Reference to a news article about the workplace phenomenon of 'quiet quitting' used as an analogy for spiritual disengagement

Point 4 of 7

Some people deny their wounds and white-knuckle their faith out of fear that admitting struggle cancels out God's love; others despair and quietly quit their faith because life feels unworkable.

we keep believing the lie that wounds cancel out wins

— Pastor Bill Bush

Point 5 of 7

God works through, not merely around, our wounds and weaknesses to bring good, as seen in Paul's thorn in the flesh and the story of Corrie ten Boom.

Related passage

Illustration

Story of Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsie in a Nazi concentration camp, and how fleas kept guards away from their secret Bible studies

Point 6 of 7

God's power is made perfect in weakness, so we can boast in weakness rather than needing our own strength to qualify us.

For when I am weak, then I am strong

— Pastor Bill Bush

A story from life

Pastor Bill's own admission of struggling with feelings of inadequacy and distance from God while preparing sermons

Point 7 of 7

Communion is the mirror that lets us hold both the wound and the win together, reflecting the cross where Jesus turned death's apparent victory into our win.

Heads, I win. Tails, you lose

— Pastor Bill Bush

Take it into your week

Application

Bill's charge is to stop hiding wounds behind a performed faith and stop giving up in despair, and instead to hold both truths at once: our struggles are real, and our win in Christ is already secured. Practically, that means confessing sin instead of white-knuckling it, admitting fear or weariness instead of pretending we have it together, and trusting that God is at work renewing us in the very moment we are hurting. Communion becomes the practice for this, a moment to reflect on the cross as the mirror that lets us see both the wound and the win together. The takeaway mantra he offers is to walk out the door believing "heads, I win, and tails, death loses," so that whatever we face, we keep showing up as faithful weekday warriors rather than quitting on God or on ourselves.

Keep going

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