Before I invite you to rise and hear the word, I wanted to just say something that, as I raise my hand may be obvious to you, but about 10 days ago, I had an experience which is not familiar to you generally, and that is that I slipped on a on a piece of ice in my backyard and broke my arm.
And I say that to you, just to say, in addition to that, don't be distracted by this. I'm perfectly comfortable, but you're you may wonder why I'm a bit informally dressed, and the fact is that I cannot put my jacket over this cast.
And so there we go. But my you know this, this very minor affliction, doesn't hinder the word preached or heard. And so I want to add to my comments, what a delight it is for me to be able to speak of Christ and to proclaim His truth to all of you and also to myself. We all need to hear the promises and commands of Scripture, and we're going to hear them right now as they come to us from First Second Corinthians 12. So I invite you to rise and listen to these words from the Apostle Paul as he was inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Second Corinthians 12.
I'm going to read verses one to 10, which is the text for the message.
I must go on boasting, though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.
I know a man in Christ who, 14 years ago, was caught up to the third heaven, whether in the body or out of the body. I do not know God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise, whether in the body or out of the body. I do not know God knows, and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.
On behalf of this man, I will boast, but on my own behalf, I will not boast except of my weaknesses. Though, if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me, so to keep me from becoming conceited, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being conceited.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this that it should leave me, but he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness, Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me, for the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
This is the Word of our Lord.
May he add his blessing to its reading? Please be seated, if you would.
Is it possible for you to be too strong to be useful to Christ?
I ask the question because I think that it is if strength is understood in a certain biblical way. And I get this from the paradox which you just heard and can be found in Second Corinthians, 1210, when I am weak, then I am strong when I learn the deep limitations of my own resources and face debilitating hardships that make me cry out for relief.
Then I am in a place where strength coming from Jesus arrives and does what I am not able to do.
But when I am strong, self reliant, confident in my own abilities, forgetful of my need for grace and my dependency on Grace, then I fail.
So brothers and sisters, let me say to you and also to me, let's not be.
Strong in our own eyes, together, let's boast in weakness and enjoy the power of Christ that rests on those who call on him to come in strength.
You may know that second Corinthians was written during a time when its author, the apostle Paul, was under attack.
There were people in Corinth who wanted to discredit him.
They belittled his ministry and insisted that the church do the same.
What an extraordinary thing and what a difficult letter to write.
What kind of letter would you write if you are under attack like that?
Paul did some really great things in the almost two years he spent with his friends in Corinth, and now people were turning against him. They were calling him names, and yet Paul loved Jesus, and he loved the Church of Jesus, and so, under the influence and power of the Holy Spirit, he wrote this letter, chapter 12, contains an amazing confession.
I don't think there is a more profound self disclosure in all of Paul's letters than what we have here.
Verse. These 10 verses give us a report of the highest peak and the deepest valley in the life of the apostle. The greatest experience with God and his darkest trial, suffering so great that he pleaded with the Lord three times that it would be removed.
Now Paul's testimony means something to you and also to me.
Let's not become proud of our experiences, and let's not despise our sufferings. And I want us all to receive these lessons under these three heads.
So I failed to provide the outline ahead of time, so it's not in your bulletin, but let me give you that outline right now.
Three things, the limits of privilege. That's one the uses of suffering. And what I mean by that, how God used suffering in the life of Paul, and how he can use suffering in your life as well. And then finally, we'll turn our attention to the very most important thing, and that is the weakness and the power of Jesus, Christ, the Son of God, our Savior. So first, the limits of privilege.
The apostle Paul was a very special servant of Christ, wasn't he? God used him to do amazing things and and to give us glorious explanations of the gospel. These things we know, and we know quite a bit about Paul when compared to other New Testament figures, but there is so much about him that we do not know. In fact, if he were not slandered by his enemies in Corinth, we would probably never learn about a certain experience that he had with Christ. Here are his words again. Look with me at verse two. I know a man in Christ who, 14 years ago, was caught up to the third heaven, whether in the body or out of the body. I do not know God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise, whether in the body or out of the body. I do not know God knows, and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.
It seems strange to us that Paul would speak of himself in the third person, but that is what he did.
Jesus did this sometimes, didn't he? Maybe you know these words, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many that's Mark 1045, it's really good that Jesus was talking about himself in this text, because noone else could have ransomed us for God.
So Paul's words tell a story about himself and in humility, he told it in the third person, and he must have had himself in mind, because he owns the boasting connected with the experience.
And he did boast. It's there in the text. Paul was a boaster.
You know, we don't usually recommend boasting, but Paul's is a good kind of boasting, and I want to tell you why.
First of all, he was addressing the ungodly boasting of those who are promoting themselves in the church. They presented letters, perhaps.
Lists of references and accomplishments as well to certify their value as leaders and as teachers, they were really something. You see, they had letters.
Where are your letters? Paul?
Why should we listen to you, you're small, you're ineloquent.
Why you don't even charge fees for your speaking engagements?
What kind of apostle Are you?
These kinds of accusations were being made, and the Christians at Corinth were hearing them, and they were beginning to believe them.
By the way, Paul's readers, as they have listened to this letter, already learned about Paul's letter of recommendation.
Maybe you know these words from the third chapter. This is Second Corinthians, three. One to three.
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again, or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendations to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation written on our hearts to be known and read by all.
And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the Living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.
So so Paul's reference letter is the transforming grace of Jesus Christ present in those whom he served. That's why he said You are our letter.
Still, Paul was questioned, so he took on the uncomfortable task of listing his qualifications, and you can find them throughout the letter, but especially in chapter 11, and when you read them, notice that they did not include fees and letters. There is no list of earnings, no references from satisfied customers, no reports of church planting successes or sell out crowds of applauding ticket holders, none of that he reported on his trials, his weaknesses. God's certification of him came in the context of suffering, of deep suffering.
Then consider that even this report of the vision is presented 14 years after it happened.
Paul didn't parade himself as the best friend of Jesus, and then prove it by talking about the vision.
No, he gave his conversion testimony many times, but never this 14 year old vision, at least not until he feels almost forced to do so in this letter.
And then finally, remember that Paul really was boasting in ways known to the saints throughout history, in boasting in weakness. He really was boasting in the Lord.
Maybe you know these words from Jeremiah nine. Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast in his might.
Let not the rich man boast in his riches. But let him who boasts boast in this that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, declares the Lord.
You boast that way, brothers and sisters, and you will honor Christ.
Now, what about this vision?
What was it?
I really don't know, and you don't know either. In fact, Paul himself did not know it completely in the body, out of the body, he couldn't tell what he did know, and what he reported in this letter is that he was drawn up to heaven, the third heaven, as he put it, Paradise, and that he heard things that cannot be spoken.
What did he hear?
Where exactly did he go?
How long was he there?
How did he get back?
We don't know.
And you know, it's good. The.
We don't know.
This is not an experience that you and I ought to seek. It was unique and for the most part, unknowable to us in this life.
But what a blessing this must have been for Paul. He enjoyed it. He remembered it as he was able, but he was also put in a place of risk, the risk of inflating the value of the vision, and so inflating his own value in his own mind.
And I say that because of what is coming in the next. Verses, now while you and I cannot make a claim like his, and we ought not to seek and experience like Paul's, we can experience and probably most of us have very special times of blessing from the Lord, positive feel good, spiritual moments when we all enjoy the blessings of God.
And when that happens, we may be tempted to think more of ourselves than we should.
God does some great things for you, and you begin to own them, as if you deserve his favor, or are better than other people, or are somehow privileged in some way.
We're all privileged, aren't we?
We are the family of God, and we have Jesus, who is our friend, our Savior, our elder brother and our King, and we have countless blessings because of our adoption into God's family, but we must never allow the blessings that we receive from God to puff us up.
Don't let that happen, brothers and sisters, humbly give thanks.
Enjoy what God has done. And if you are going to boast, then you boast in him, or as Paul would put it, boast in your weakness.
Paul was a privileged person, really a VIP, we sometimes say, but there was risk in this, even for Paul. Paul was placed in danger through privilege, and the danger was the temptation to boast in his own strength. So God puts suffering into his life, and he puts suffering into all of our lives, doesn't he?
Let's think a little bit about Paul's particular trial God's design in bringing it, and then we can be thinking about our own trials as well along the way, and quietly in our hearts, commit those things to Jesus.
Christ sent Paul a thorn in the flesh. It was a messenger of Satan, that's how he put it. But as with all of Satan's intentions, God overruled them.
He used the darkness for his own good purposes. That's his way.
And in this case, the Lord's purpose was to protect Paul from pride. He says it there in verse seven. Have a look, so to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
Think some of you know that my family lived in Uganda for a time as your missionaries, it was in a remote region called Karamoja, and Karamoja is named by son the land of thorns, and that's a good name because it is loaded with thorn trees, and those thorns are hard and they are pointy and they are very strong.
The Karamoja people surround their villages with thorned fences to keep out intruders, and I'm here to tell you that it is a very effective approach to security. Wouldn't work in Tampa, but it works in the bush, and I once got a bloody cut on my head by just walking under a tree and lightly brushing against a thorn.
They can hurt, but they can be managed. Just watch where you're going, watch where you're walking, and try to avoid them, but if a thorn gets you wash your wound and.
And wait healing will come.
Paul's image here is actually much stronger than that. He did not want his readers to think that his trial was a manageable irritant.
Paul's Thorn, some say steak would be a better English word for this word, his thorn was not a mere nuisance. It was an abiding agony. And we don't really know what it was. You can read the studies and collect a list of possibilities, maybe some of you have most say it was a physical affliction of some sort, but we're not sure whatever it was, it was painful, and brought Paul to a place of pleading.
Now it must have been really bad, because as far as we know, Paul did not repeatedly beg for relief from his other really painful trials, like receiving 39 lashes from his enemies, five times, five times. Second Corinthians, 1124, what was it like for Paul to endure that kind of torture a second time remembering the feeling of the first would you have pleaded for relief if you are faced with a second and then a third and then a fourth and then a fifth beating?
No record of Paul seeking such relief he might have. Of course, we don't know, but the Scripture doesn't record it.
And yet, this thorn, this verse seven, thorn, was so painful, so agonizing, that Paul repeatedly begged that Christ would take it away, but it remained.
Why? Why did it remain?
I want to give you two reasons, two ways that God used suffering in Paul's life. In this particular episode, the first thing is specifically mentioned in the text. You've heard it already. God's design was to keep Paul from being conceited, and this is not at all difficult for anyone to understand. Christ blessed Paul in ways really unknown to almost anyone else, and yet he loved Paul too much to allow blessing to stand alone.
He combined it with suffering in order to protect Paul from himself.
Brothers and sisters do not despise the hardships that come to you, and they do come. We all know it. We all feel it.
They are God's loving instruments, things that he uses to show that he is great and you are weak, and that he is strong for you, because if you experience only positive, affirming, comfortable things, you will begin to think too highly of yourself, and that is far more dangerous than any trial that can come to You.
If everything goes well and always goes well, then how will you know that you're trusting in Christ?
How will you recognize your own weakness? And if you don't recognize your own weakness, how will you discover Christ's power? You won't, and that's the point. It's not that Jesus delights in your pain, not at all. You're never to think that he is a sympathetic high priest.
He has compassion on you. Glory to Him. He knows how you feel, and he knows because he's been here.
But in his sympathy, he wants you to trust in Him and to rely upon him and to receive power from him. Your weakness and your recognition of your weakness is the means that God has given for you to call upon Him and to receive his power. And that's why Paul can say, when I am weak, then I am strong. Is Christ's strength about which he speaks.
And weakness comes in various forms, doesn't it? For Paul, it was a physical weakness, possibly along with a trajectory toward Pride. Pride, probably all of our weakness, but for you, maybe some other things.
But I would be very surprised to learn that there is anyone here who is not conscious right now of some kind of weakness Paul's problem.
Thor was not really the thorn, as painful as that must have been, that affliction, that thorn, whatever it was, was not the real disease.
In truth, it was the treatment, and it was the treatment for far deeper conditions, namely pride and self reliance.
So God's design in this was to protect Paul from Pride. That's one thing. And the second is this, God did not remove the thorn so that Paul would learn how to pray and to rely upon grace.
Paul prayed. The Lord was listening. The Lord did not do what Paul begged him to do, and so he kept praying.
He knew when to pray, and somehow he knew when to stop praying.
And we know that Christ heard him. And not only do we know that, but we know that he answered the prayer, because the answer is right here in the letter. Did you see it? Verse nine? Let me read it to you again. But he said to me, that's Christ's answer to Paul's pleading. But he said to me, and here it is, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness, Therefore I will boast all the more gladly, says Paul in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. There it is the grace of Christ is sufficient.
Do you believe that it was for Paul, and it is for you. It really is never be embarrassed to go to God in weakness, rejoice that he will receive you and that he will provide for you. Do you want the power of Christ to rest upon you do? You face your weaknesses, go to Jesus and plead with Him, not to make your life easy, but to strengthen your faith and your walk with him.
I've heard it said that you will learn that Christ is all you need if Christ is all you have, and sometimes God seems to remove much of life support in order to draw one of his children close. I don't know this personally yet, but I know some people who do, and they know it well.
And maybe you know such people, maybe you're among them.
I should say that Paul did not sin in his prayer. It was good for him to want relief and to pray for relief, and you can do the same, but life may not shape up the way you want.
We'll go to Jesus and tell him that too, and then rest in His love, plead for his strength and rely upon His grace that is always, always sufficient for you, because when you are weak, then you are strong.
Let's turn our attention to Jesus. Shall we the weakness and the power of Christ?
Near the end of the letter, Paul wrote these amazing words, I wonder if you've heard them, for he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God.
That's chapter 13, verse four.
So Jesus was also weak, not in every way he was without sin. We believe that we have no hope without that fact, but in many ways, we might say in every other way, he was weak. His whole life was weakness. He was despised and rejected. He was falsely accused. He was called a demon, a drunkard, a glutton, an illegitimate child, a Sabbath breaker, a promise breaker and a blasphemer.
He wept at a funeral and was deeply troubled by the betrayal of a close friend.
He felt every blow that came to him and every word of mockery hurled at him, did Jesus feel the weakness that Paul later felt and that we presently feel. Did he Yes? He did.
Is he able to sympathize? Yes?
But can he really appreciate what it means to plead for relief the way Paul did three times, yes again? Do.
Turn back the clock in your mind, from Paul's day just a couple of decades to another scene, the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed three times for the cup of the Father to pass.
But with that prayer was the recognition that his father's will must prevail, and that's the way to pray always for all of us, Jesus did not sin and ask him because he was willing to accept the will of his Father.
This does, by the way, put to rest the idea that you can, you can discern God's leading through feelings of peace, Jesus was in agony as he thought about what was coming.
And we're not to believe otherwise.
The climax of Jesus' weakness, of course, came when he gave his life for your sins.
He was crucified in weakness, not that he had no power, but that he chose not to use his power to destroy his enemies or to escape their evil judgments, but he submitted to weakness and suffering and death for You, it was for you he was crucified in weakness, but he lives by the power of God. We have to finish the sentence. The grave was not able to hold Jesus. He rose in power.
He lives right now in power, and he provides power to all who come to him in weakness. And I hope you all believe this. I hope you can say with Paul, when I am weak, then I am strong.
Jesus knows you. He is present with you.
He is tender toward you, and He will provide for you.
He completely gets how broken the world is and how difficult it is to live among the pieces.
He understands, he sympathizes, and he is very pleased to give you the strength you need to face the trials that come in this life.
Hallelujah.
Praise His name.
Let's bow together, Father, we thank you for all of the promises and commands of Scripture. We pray that You would help us to know them, believe them and follow them. We confess that we are slow to learn them, and so we need you to come and increase our faith, enlarge our hearts for you, for your word, your church and your world.
And Lord, help us when trials come to know our weaknesses and to cast our cares upon you, pleading with you to come in strength and give us the persevering grace we need to honor you through the trials of life.
We pray these things with gladness and in Jesus, name Amen.