Please open your Bibles to 2nd Corinthians, please. Our lesson will be taken from this passage
2nd Corinthians Chapter 12.
And we'll read that in a moment. I want to start with a question.
And the question is this.
Have you ever noticed that there's always something holding you back?
Ever notice that? Always something holding you back.
Let me put it to you another way. Have you noticed that there's always a fly in the ointment?
There's always one or two things that prevent you from having just
about everything you want or having it exactly your way. You've got it almost your way
except for this or that.
For example, you've got a great job and a great family but there's something wrong with your body.
Headache or diabetes or a sore back or whatever that interferes with total enjoyment.
You can say, I've just got everything I'm so blessed, except for those migraines.
Or you've just built the house
that you've always wanted and you discover that your neighbor has a constantly barking
dog or decided to raise chickens.
Or you've worked hard, you've saved up, you've gotten the children
settled married off, you're ready to travel finally and
then your father dies leaving his sick mother to care for 24 hours a day.
Or you are young and you're strong and you're smart,
but you struggle with depression or perhaps a secret sin that only
you know about, but that's just eating your lunch.
I could go on but I think you get the picture.
It seems that no matter what is right in our lives there's always something that takes the shine off.
There's always something that spoils what could have been just an ideal perfect situation.
And it happens to all of us.
Of course we're not unique, as I said and this is not a new phenomenon in life.
Even Paul the Apostle, one of the most dynamic Apostles
experienced this type of disappointment.
And he wrote about it to our benefit.
Now Paul, the Apostle, was undoubtedly one of the most successful, preachers,
writers, missionaries, apostles.
I mean he performed miracles. God used him to write a good portion of the New Testament.
He established most of the first congregations
of the church in the Roman Empire. He was responsible for
breaching the wall between Jew and Gentile. Certainly Peter was the first one to
preach to the Gentiles. But Paul did a lot of work with gentiles,
especially given the ministry that he was given by the Lord.
All of this success, all of these blessings upon his ministry,
all of these things were tempered however,
with many disappointments and frustrations. He was often beaten and jailed .
Many times people within the church and
outside the church were attacking him and opposing him.
Several of his close associates abandoned him. When things got tough they just they just left him.
It seemed that no matter what
heights he scaled in the service of the Lord there was always a spoiler.
There was always a competing negative force making sure that the situation was never completely satisfying.
Now this pattern in his life finally came to a head one day when Paul
was given a special vision, a special revelation from the
Lord which literally took him out of this dimension and somehow
transported him into the heavenly or the spiritual dimension.
And Paul describes this experience in 2nd Corinthians Chapter 12.
Now he's speaking of himself in the third
person probably for humility sake. But he says of this
experience in Chapter 12 of 2nd Corinthians beginning verse 1 he says,
"Boasting is necessary, though it is not profitable; but I will go on to
visions and revelations of the Lord.
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago-- whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body
I do not know, God knows-- such a man was caught up to the third heaven.
And I know how such a man-- whether in the body or apart from the
body I do not know, God knows-- was caught up into
paradise and heard inexpressible words which a man is not permitted to speak.
Think about this for a moment. Imagine the feeling.
Imagine the absolute thrill of being brought into the heavenly realm while still in your earthly body.
Certainly it's a promise for all of us one day.
But imagine being in that dimension while still in your earthly body.
Imagine the joy, imagine the sense of empowerment.
Imagine the gratitude, the zeal, the renewed faith, that this could give a person.
Boy, a guy would be on fire. You think you're on fire sometimes when you hear a good lesson or
you read a passage in Scripture or something like that, you think you're really on fire.
Imagine how on fire you'd be for the Lord if you were actually in heaven;
the assurance, that knowledge.
I mean if Paul was a mighty preacher and teacher, if he was a
zealous missionary before this experience imagine what he could be after such a vision.
What a spiritual boost to consciously see and experience heaven before you die.
Now just as he is spiritually pumped, just as he is
spiritually invincible, because of this vision, look at what happens.
See what he says comes along immediately after his
mountaintop experience. Go down to verse 7.
He says, "Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations,
for this reason, to keep me"... Now
he realizes he's talking about himself. I mean he's telling his readers I'm really talking about myself. He says,
"...for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself,
there was given me a thorn in the flesh,
a messenger of Satan to torment me-- to keep me from exalting myself!
So, no sooner than he was at the top a thorn,
a restriction, a spoiler, a downer, was
added to the mix by the Lord. Now there's a lot of discussion
about what exactly happened to him. You know a lot of people like to debate.
Was it a vision problem, a disease? But who cares what it was.
I mean physically.
The point that Paul makes is that for him it was a burden.
It was a restriction, it was a spoiler, it was a thorn. A thorn is the way he refers to it.
Does it matter if it's a sore back or a migraine or low vision or
high blood pressure, dizzy spells, vertigo.
Does it matter what it is? It don't matter what it is.
What matters is he says this was a thorn in my flesh,
something that caused pain and diverted his attention from the
sublime experience that he had planned to enjoy,
to a discomforting annoyance always present.
Now I'll tell you that this is where Christians part company with the rest of the world.
For unbelievers, when there is a problem,
The objective is to minimize and eliminate the
thorns as quickly and as painfully as possible.
If you're not a believer and there's a thorn the objective is let's just get rid of this thorn.
The faster the better.
But for unbelievers the ultimate
goal is personal happiness and freedom from thorns.
That's what everybody is chasing after.
Christians, on the other hand have a different approach. One articulated by Paul
in his effort to deal with this particular thorn.
And I think, him talking about how
he dealt with his thorn that was spoiling his great vision,
perhaps, gives us some information on
how we can deal with our thorns, that spoil the blessings and the
wonderful life that we may have.
You see for Christians, there are three possible responses for the spoiler
elements in life, for the thorns that often come into our lives
to threaten our peace, to threaten our happiness,
to spoil our contentment. They're all in the passage.
The first response of a Christian to the thorns of life, prayer, prayer.
Verse 8, he says, "concerning this I implored the Lord three times
that it might leave me, leave me".
You see Paul prayed a legitimate prayer that the thorn be removed.
Notice also that he kept on praying until he had some kind of relief,
some kind of response. I mean simply resigning ourselves
to difficulties and obstacles, to the thorns of life, that is
not necessarily the Christian thing to do. Some people think you have a thorn, you just say, well
I guess that's what the Lord wants.
I'm just going to take it. That's doormat, I think.
That's doormat living.
It's OK to aggressively seek to remove those things
that reduce our joy and our satisfaction in life, our peace and our happiness. I'm going to tell you
if there is a cure I want it!
And if there is a solution I want it! And if there is a way out,
show me! I'm going to be praying for that.
And having exhausted his natural resources in dealing with the problem,
Paul began to beat on the door of heaven through prayer for relief. Not once and I don't
mean like three times in a day. He's talking about he is intensely coming to the
Lord about this issue.
Prayer is our effective tool in removing the many thorns
of life that often spoil what could be a good life
or could be the difference between a fair life and a great life.
Sometimes our prayers for relief are answered and we simply continue
on in the way we were before our thorns began to cause us pain.
Hallelujah! Like my mother used to teach me somebody gives you something,
just say thank you.
The Lord answers your prayer?
Just say thank you. Don't say why. Why did you answer my prayer? Who cares.why.
Thank you Lord. Thank you.
Sometimes our prayers for relief are answered but not in the way that we had hoped.
Sometimes God chooses to leave the
thorn in place for an indefinite amount of time.
In these cases, we have another response which Paul describes in verse 9
and that is submission.
Verse 9 he says and "He", meaning God, and "He
has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for
power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly therefore, I will rather
boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me".
The second response to a thorn,
submission. In this verse, God speaks to Paul
and Paul responds to the Lord and God's answer to his prayers
is to remind Paul of the spiritual principle that the thorn has been
sent to teach him.
He prays. He says, "God please take away the thorn". He's focused on the thorn.
And God answers his prayers. How?
By explaining to Paul why the thorn is there.
And the reason the thorn has been sent to him is to teach him that
God's power is more easily and clearly seen in a
person who is weak and dependent on God than
one who is strong and self sufficient.
What a lesson to learn.
I didn't think about this but what a lesson to learn on Father's Day.
Because isn't that what men do?
Isn't that what men want?
They want to be self sufficient.
They don't want the thorn. Because if the thorn comes they may
have to depend on somebody, so they don't want the thorn.
It would be easy for Paul the miracle worker,
the prolific missionary, the insightful teacher, to stumble into
pride and conceit on account of all his incredible achievements and then add to
that being in the heavenly realm in bodily form.
And it would be easy for the church to exalt the man Paul for his abilities
and success above other man.
But this thorn reduced him to dependence on
others to do his work. This thorn drove him
to his knees in prayer for strength.
Why is it that when we're happy and everything's going great we pray standing up?
And then when everything you know blows up and falls apart then we think of kneeling down.
I wonder if things would go better if we knelt down when things were going well and gave thanks.
And so despite his great success and prestige in the church, this thorn served to
reveal the true source of his power in ministry.
This thorn was a constant reminder that his was a fragile life
held delicately in the hand of God.
You see, Paul's submission was not necessarily a submission
to the presence of the thorn.
That's the best that unbelievers can do when they have a thorn that won't go away. They simply accept
its constant presence and they carry on. That's called stoicism. That's not Christianity.
No, Paul's submission was to the purpose that God had
for allowing the thorn to enter him and to remain in his life.
He didn't accept the pain. He accepted the purpose,
the purpose for the thorn.
This type of response is a response of faith. This is what he says
when he answers the Lord. He submits to the change in circumstances.
The shift that his life has
taken because of the thorn. You see it went beyond just the thorn.
He's gone from being a strong independent man
to a physically weak and dependent man and he submits to God's
new demand of him. You're wondering well,
what demand is that? That he suffer?
What demand is God making of him?
That he accept the thorn and stop whining, moaning?
No. The new demand is that he now
witness Christ through his weakness rather than through his former strength.
That's the demand. Rather than be depressed and
angry or refuse to accept the new reality, Paul seized the opportunity to
reveal Christ in a way that he could not do before.
And that is through his weaknesses.
And so as Christians we submit to the thorns of life,
by learning to glorify God and serve Christ as people with thorns.
You see the difference?
Some people simply learn to live with their thorns. They make the best of it.
But Christians, like Paul, are called upon not just
to make the best of life with their thorns,
they're called upon to glorify God despite their thorns.
And so what are the responses that Paul makes to the thorn in his flesh?
One prayer. Two submission.
And finally when the thorns of life come
we as Christians can do one other thing. We can rise above.
We can rise above. Verse 10, Paul says, "Therefore,
I am well content with weaknesses". Whoa! What did he say?
He's just gone from beating on the door of heaven saying take this thorn away from me and
couple of verses down, he says therefore I am well content with weaknesses;
with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake.
For when I am weak, I am strong.
We give lip service to that. When I am weak, I am strong.
You know why? Because we don't want to be weak. We like to say when I am strong I'm strong.
We don't like to say when I am weak, I am strong.
When I say rise above, I don't mean to ignore the problem or pretend
it doesn't exist or try to be as much like a person without a thorn as I can be.
Look at what Paul says. He is well content with weaknesses.
You know the particular thorn that he prayed about.
He is also well content with all other thorns that he has had to suffer as well.
Insults, that's a thorn Distress, that's his thorn.
Persecution, that's a thorn.
He acknowledges that he is a man with many thorns.
And yet he is content.
Whoa, wait a minute. Something wrong here. Isn't contentment what we are looking for?
Isn't contentment what we think we are going to find when we remove all the thorns,
all the restraints, all the spoilers. If we can get rid of all those things then we're going to be content.
But Paul says here,
Yeah you know all those thorns? I'm content.
What is he a masochist? He goes on to acknowledge that
to bear with thorns and, here's the key, for Christ's sake.
There's the key right there.
To bear with thorns for Christ's sake
To be made weak for the sake of Christ,
that makes him strong.
So this man with many thorns finds contentment and strength.
The very same thing that people are searching for by trying to remove all the thorns.
He finds it by leaving the thorns in.
What's the point? What's the difference? Here it is.
Enduring the thorns for Christ's sake,
meaning, with and for one's faith in Jesus, gives you
the same thing and that is, contentment and strength,
that removing all the thorns is supposed to give you, the only difference
is that you can never remove all the thorns. They are always there in one way or another.
You remove one another one shows up.
And so for a Christian to submit to the thorns of life that
God chooses to leave in your flesh,
the thorns of life that God chooses to leave in your life,
is really the way to rise above the ordinary pursuit of happiness and power,
and ultimately gain, for one's self, contentment
and true strength through Christ Jesus.
We often say well, I show Christ
through my weakness. And we always think my weakness is oh well, I'm not perfect.
We think that's my weakness or I'm not perfect.
But try showing Christ through your failures.
Try that.
Try showing Christ when the doctor says we can do anything for you anymore.
Or try showing Christ when your spouse is
not a spouse to you anymore because she is ill or he is gone or whatever.
Try it then.
So the weaker I become, the stronger Christ becomes in me.
The less of me that I am, the more of him becomes visible.
The poorer I am in this world, the richer I become in Christ.
The thornier my life becomes,
the greater my dependence and consequently my contentment is in Christ.
Don't we see it?
The more I depend on God for every, every, every, everything,
the more I find contentment and peace.
And sometimes God has to nudge us along by putting some thorns in us.
They say everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.
Well in the same way,
it seems that everybody wants more of Jesus in their lives but
nobody wants the thorns that will bring him in.
We don't always realize it, but God's answer to
Paul's prayer is still very much the answer to our own
daily prayers concerning the various thorns that we all struggle with.
When we apply these words to ourselves, we see that
God's grace is truly sufficient in every way, now,
as it was for Paul then. For example,
His grace is still sufficient to supply every one of our needs.
That wasn't just a first century thing.
That's a forever thing.
Whether it's food or shelter or help with troubles and sickness, God
still supplies according to his grace which is boundless.
There's no need to trust in worldly riches or the power of man.
God's grace is able to supply our every need. We need only to ask,
believing that he hears.
Secondly, his grace is still sufficient to cover our sins.
Jesus died once for all. And he died for all people and all sin.
First John 1. We talked about that last week, 9 and 10.
When coming to God for forgiveness let's realize that His grace covers every
sin that you have committed. There is no need to fear.
No need to worry. Why should someone who's been a Christian for 20 years worry about sin.
Now, we always need to be on guard for sin. Of course.
The tempter is always at work. The tempter is always
trying to distract us and to seduce us.
So I am on guard but I'm not worried.
There's a big difference.
And his grace still sufficient to complete our final transformation.
What the law could not accomplish, the grace of Christ completes in full.
I read another passage in Romans Chapter 8
verse 3 and 4. Paul says, "For what the law could not do, weak as it
was through the flesh, God did: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the
requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh,
but according to the spirit".
And so our final resurrection to glory and exaltation to the right hand of God
is powered by grace. And there is sufficient grace to
transform every believer into an eternal being.
Isn't it amazing that God has given us not only the resurrection of Christ
to confirm our faith in him, but he's also
giving us the experience of Paul, an ordinary man like us.
Paul was not the God man that Jesus is.
Paul was an ordinary man like us and yet he was in heaven.
Seeing and hearing things he says that we ought not to say. Why? Because we
can't we can't speak of these things. There are two wonderful.
And yet we have that example to encourage us.
Paul the Apostle learned that what he needed was not relief from the thorn
or more strength to overcome the thorn but rather the realization that if he
had God's grace he had everything he would ever need
to achieve, all he ever desired in Christ.
And so I ask you this evening. Do you have God's
grace working in your life?
It begins to work in you when you submit to His command to believe in Jesus
Christ, repent of your sins, be united with him in the waters of baptism.
It begins there. And it continues to work in you as you submit to God's
plan for your life whatever that is, whatever many thorns that may include.
It's not as if God made a mistake, it's not as if God forgot you,
it's not as if God fumbled the ball somehow when it comes to your life.
You are exactly where you're supposed to be if you're a Christian.
If you're not a Christian you're supposed to be in Christ. But if you are in Christ you are
exactly where you are supposed to be.
And grace completes its work
when Jesus returns for you in death or in glory
for the final and the eternal transformation.
I am so anxious, so looking forward to being me without sin
I'm looking so forward
to seeing you without sin.
That we can have fellowship where neither of us
are subject to sin any longer.
I mean we have a wonderful fellowship right here and now and we're still
sinners, we're forgiven sinners and yet somehow we have this wonderful fellowship.
Can you imagine how wonderful it will be if you just remove the weakness of the
flesh and we have the glorified body without sin, without reference to sin?
How marvelous it will be. Truly, they call it heaven for a reason.
God's grace is sufficient for you.
And if you need to submit to His Grace or to respond to him in any way this evening,
whether it be to be baptized or to be restored,
to place membership with this congregation, that you might be under the leadership of our elders and
give us the right hand of fellowship, if that's what you need to do.
Whatever it is, we encourage you to come forward now.
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