Well, please turn with me this morning to 2 Corinthians chapter 12 as we consider today the first 10 verses of this chapter, 2 Corinthians 12 verses 1 through 10. These verses are the climax of Paul's defense of his apostleship. In fact, an argument could be made that these verses are the climax of Paul's entire argument throughout 1st and 2 Corinthians. They declare that God's grace is sufficient for us because God's power is put on display in our lives through the very weaknesses and shortcomings and hardships that we endure. Our chief end is to glorify God, and God is glorified in us when, among other things, His grace proves to be a sufficient help.
Through all of life's difficulties. Let's read it together. 2 Corinthians 12, verses 1 through 10. 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 being 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. 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. The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God. Let's pray. Lord, there are truths in your word that are hard. And the one before us today is hard. To realize that part of your plan, your ideal for us in this life, is that we experience suffering and difficult things.
undesirable things, thorns in our flesh. And that these experiences are for our ultimate good and your glory. It's a hard thing. We don't like suffering. We don't like pain.
We don't like calamity. But Lord, with this hard truth comes a promise: a promise that your grace will be enough for the trial. and that ultimately that grace will prevail and be perfected through the trial. Suffering for your children leads to contentment and joy.
So Lord, we ask that you would. Get your people through the Red Sea once more. Help us cross the Jordan and take the promised land. Give us grace sufficient. to navigate the trials of this life.
And sustain us with the assurance that one day all suffering will cease. Lord, keep us until that day. And would you use the next few moments that we spend meditating on your word to strengthen your church? for our pilgrimage to that final home. where glory and joy unspeakable will reign supreme.
I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. As we've observed in previous sermons, Paul is engaged in a lengthy defense of his apostleship. And he has begun imitating the false apostles who had been trying to win over the Christians at Corinth by boasting like they boast. Only the content of Paul's boasting was radically different from that of the false apostles.
They boasted about that which made them look strong. Paul, on the other hand, boasted about his weaknesses, his suffering, his persecution, his anxieties. Because as it turns out, it is weakness, not strength, that verifies the authenticity of an apostle.
Well, another thing that verifies the authenticity of an apostle is his relationship with God. If an apostle is an authoritative messenger from God himself, then an apostle must be one who hears directly from God. And so, in his defense of his authority in the church, Paul turns now to the topic of visions and revelations. What Paul says about his visions and revelations from the Lord is going to one-up or outdoor or silence the false apostles in Corinth at every turn. This is kind of Paul's mic drop.
This is Paul declaring checkmate against his opponents. They will have no comeback after his last word of defense. It's the climax of his boasting. And yet even in this climactic boast, Paul demonstrates exceptional humility and selflessness. He has learned to embrace his weakness and insufficiency because he has learned to embrace God's strength and sufficiency.
And herein lies the central truth that is made clear in our text. We, like Paul, need to learn to trust God because dependence on God is the soil in which contentment and obedience grow. First, we're reminded that Paul is still engaged in an extended boast, but not because he's a narcissist, not because he loves bragging. No, he's been driven to boast by the false teachers who seem to do nothing but talk about themselves. And to their shame, the Corinthians are all too eager to be captivated by this false boasting.
So Paul begins by saying, I must go on boasting, though there is nothing to be gained by it in terms of virtue or personal glory. We'll see frequent indicators. throughout this text of Paul's reluctance to even engage in the same tactics as his opponents, but for the sake of Corinth, having their spiritual eyes open to the truth, he boasts of visions and revelations. Paul describes a heavenly vision in verse 2 and following, a powerful revelation from God himself that's given directly to the Apostle Paul. But in recounting this vision, Paul speaks in the third person as if the story isn't about him.
This is just another demonstration of Paul's modesty and uncomfortableness with boasting. Verse 2, I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven. He says he was caught up to the third heaven. A lot of people have speculated about what the third heaven is. In fact, there are going to be several details that intrigue us in this passage that make us want to know more.
But it's always a good practice to not allow ourselves to go beyond what Scripture makes clear. If God did not see fit to include certain details in Scripture, then we should not insist that those unknowns are central to the truth being conveyed.
Now having said that, it's a reasonable assumption that Paul's mention of the third heaven simply refers to the dominant understanding of the cosmos back in Paul's day. A view in which the first heaven referred to the atmosphere of earth, the sky, the clouds, where the birds fly. The second heaven referred to outer space, the moon, the stars, the planets. And the third heaven was the abode of God. Heaven as we typically use that term today.
And whatever Paul means by third heaven in verse two, it's synonymous with paradise in verse three.
So Paul, speaking in the third person, tells of an experience in which he found himself, either literally or spiritually, in the presence of God. And in that moment, verse 4, he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. Once again, we want to know more. Tell us, Paul, what you heard. It's so intriguing.
Secret information, divine revelation. But Paul does not reveal what he heard. In fact, Paul cannot reveal what he heard. The point of his retelling of this experience has nothing to do with the revelation he received. It has everything to do with the fact that Paul saw and interacted with God directly in heaven.
That was the miracle Corinth needed to hear. That was the experience that was intended to silence the false apostles. You see, Paul knew for a fact that these false prophets were not from God. And how did he know? Because he, Paul, was sent from God.
God spoke directly to Paul. I remember sitting in a class once and the teacher was explaining to the class the correct pronunciation of a particular German word.
Well, the student I was sitting next to had actually been born and raised in Germany.
So I looked over at him for confirmation of what the teacher was saying and he whispered, it's not pronounced that way.
Now whose word do you think I believed? I believe the German. He was authentic. He was the real deal. He was, well, German.
The false apostles claimed to be speaking for God when they taught, but Paul had actually been to heaven and heard from God directly. He was the real deal. He had been with God in the third heaven. He and not the super apostles was the bona fide apostle.
Now let's just stop and think about this for a moment. Paul has just revealed. an incredible vision that he had had 14 years prior. A vision that established him in the minds of the Corinthians as a bona fide apostle. And yet, he is only just now sharing this information with the Corinthian church.
And he's sharing it reluctantly, forced to it. By the conceited methods of his false competitors. This raises the question. Why had Paul not already shared this vision, this revelation with Corinth? Why had Paul instead determined, all the way back in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, to preach nothing to the Corinthians except Jesus Christ and Him crucified?
The answer to that question lies in the fact that the gospel And not subjective or mystical experience is the power of God unto salvation. Paul did not seek to manipulate Corinth through a personal testimony of his subjective experience precisely because God's word is sufficient in and of itself. Christ, as he is offered to us in the gospel, is enough. Just as Abraham told the rich man in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, if sinners won't listen to Moses and the prophets, That is, if they won't heed the word of the Lord, it won't make any difference though someone be raised from the dead. That's a testimony to the power and the sufficiency of the word of God.
Paul understood this. And so He put his Reliance as an apostle, as an evangelist, as a preacher, in the Word of God, not in his own personal experience. I remember years ago going through an evangelism training program, the teacher kept emphasizing what I've come to believe is a false premise. but one that's often asserted. He kept saying that unbelievers might object to the facts of the gospel, but they can never call into question your personal testimony, your experience of the gospel.
And so this evangelism teacher concluded: sharing a personal testimony is more important and more effective than sharing propositions and doctrines and Bible verses. Friends, that's simply not true. While there may be at times an apologetical reason to share your personal testimony with an unbeliever, it is and will always be the gospel that is the power of God unto salvation. The objective good news of Jesus Christ and him crucified is the thing God uses to bring a newly regenerated soul from spiritual darkness to spiritual light. Otherwise, Paul would have established the church at Corinth on the foundation of his incredible story of going to the third heaven and hearing from God.
Instead, he established it on the fact. the proposition of Jesus Christ being crucified as a substitute for sinners. not even bothering to mention the third heaven thing until 14 years after it happened. Here's the lesson, church. God's word is more authoritative and more effective than my subjective experience.
Paul was sharing that incredible vision now, but only as a means of demonstrating the foolishness of boasting and as a means of demonstrating how God was going to take Paul's weaknesses and turn them into strengths.
Well, this brings us to the next part of the story. Having heard about Paul's powerful revelation, we come next to the part about a humbling thorn, verse 7.
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 conceded. Paul tells us twice what the thorn's purpose was. It was to keep him from becoming conceited because of the greatness of the revelations Paul had received in that incredible vision. We don't know what the content of those revelations was.
We couldn't even, Paul couldn't even tell anyone if he wanted to, but whatever it was, it was surpassing in its greatness and thus tempted Paul. who was a sinner like the rest of us, to conceit. to an undue sense of his own self-importance, to pride. And isn't that just like the sinful nature? To take something good, something surpassingly great even, and turn it into a cause, an excuse for sin?
Our flesh is constantly taking things like truth and turning it into gossip, taking marriage and turning it into lust, taking faith and turning it into worry, taking righteous zeal and turning it into sinful anger. Left to ourselves. Even our spiritual blessings can turn into sin. In Paul's case, He had been given special knowledge. Divinely revealed truth.
What a blessing, what an honor, what a privilege. And yet left to ourselves, spiritual blessings often turn into something sinful. That's the pervasiveness of our sin nature. That's the insidiousness of sin. And so, one of the purposes of trials in your life.
is to counter this tendency to turn good things into bad things. God gave Paul amazing knowledge of secret things, and then he gave Paul a thorn in the flesh. to prevent pride from taking over his life. And so we glean yet another unexpected truth from this remarkable account of Paul. For the sinful heart Knowledge needs suffering.
or else it turns into conceit. Knowledge needs suffering. or else it turns into conceit. Another unexpected truth and one that's really difficult for a lot of people to accept. is that God is the giver of thorns in my life.
God is the giver of the thorns. It's not as if God is the giver of the surpassingly great visions and the devil is the giver of thorns. No, God is the giver of both. Martin Luther said, there are three rules for understanding scripture. praying, meditating, and suffering trials.
Luther said, the trials are supremely valuable. They teach you not only to know and understand, but also to experience how right, how true, how sweet, how lovely, how mighty, how comforting God's word is. Friends, the thorns in your life are God's thorns. The devil is God's devil. Luther went on to say of his chief opponent in life, I owe my papists many thanks.
For so beating, pressing, and frightening me through the devil's raging that they have turned me into a fairly good theologian, driving me to a goal I should never have reached. God sent a thorn to Paul to keep him humble. We don't know what that thorn was. Many have speculated about what it might have been. The Bible doesn't tell us, so it doesn't matter.
What we do know is that it was God's tool for God's good. just like the thorns in your life are. and the thorns in my life are. In verse 8, we see Paul's response. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.
This thorn drove Paul to earnest, deliberate, frequent prayer. Lord, take this away. It's unbearable. It's too much. We're reminded perhaps of Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Lord, let this cup pass from me.
These are appropriate responses to the God-given thorns in our lives. They should drive us to prayer. They should drive us to desperate dependence on God. That's part of their purpose.
Well, what then was God's answer? to Paul's fervent prayer. Verse 9, but he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you. And then he gives a reason, for my power is made perfect. in weakness.
And there is the statement that summarizes the entire message of Paul's letter: God's power is made perfect in weakness. In other words, God's power is most visibly demonstrated in the midst of impossible odds. Unlikely victories, insurmountable opposition, thorns in the flesh that won't go away. Enemies that I can't seem to overcome. These are the kinds of situations that put God's strength on display the best.
And in that sense, they perfect God's power, they complete it by making it obvious to all. And so the answer to Paul's prayer was no. The answer to Christ's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane was no. God keeps his servants in the crucible because the crucible is no match for his grace. Here's the lesson to be learned.
God often delights to deliver His children through the trial, not from the trial, because His grace is so sufficient. And there are two ways to go about carrying something heavier than you can pick up. One way is to make the object lighter, the other way is to make yourself stronger. In the lives of his children, God often opts for the second method, making his children stronger because it puts God's strengthening grace on display.
Now I suspect that what I'm saying this morning is having One of two effects on those listening. I suspect you're thinking about the thorns in your life. Or the unanswered prayers you've prayed, or the insurmountable circumstances you've had to contend with, and you're either finding great hope and comfort for your soul in the truth that God is behind all of that. He has a purpose for the thorns. He actually gave you the thorns, and it's for your good.
His grace will see you through, and you will be the stronger for it. These truths are a salve to your soul. Yeah. You despise what I'm saying and are thinking to yourself, what a bunch of dupes these people are to think that God loves himself so much that all he wants to do is show off how strong he is, even at the expense of his poor, helpless, hurting children. That's sick.
That's warped. I want nothing to do with that if that's what God is really like. I want to talk to the second group for just a moment. It is clear that Paul is saying God's strength is best displayed through human weakness. That's the whole point of this passage of Scripture.
But it's also true that if you don't love God more than you love yourself, you're going to resent what Paul is asserting, and you will eventually grow to resent and hate God for being God. The truth that God will redeem your trials by using them to put His glory on display is only a comfort to those who are in hot pursuit of His glory. If you're in hot pursuit of your own glory, there's no comfort or peace in the knowledge that God will be glorified through your suffering. and thereby turn your suffering into joy. But if this is your attitude and you feel justified in that attitude, it is incumbent upon me to point out.
that you, like the Corinthians before you, have made an idol of yourself. You're believing the lie Satan told in the Garden of Eden. You can be like God, you can determine right and wrong for yourself. You can be sovereign. You can be in control.
You can be God. Friends, it wasn't true then. It's not true now. No matter what philosophical dress you give it. That lie will end in you trying to use fig leaves to shield yourself from thorns.
And friends, that will destroy your soul. And land you in a place of miserable torment forever. We simply are not made to worship ourselves. We're made to worship God. God is perfect.
God is righteous. God is light. God is love. God is everything that is beautiful and good and true. In Him alone is perfect happiness and purpose and fulfillment.
In Him is life. Only in Him can you truly live. and live happily ever after. If that's true, then every step we take toward God is a step toward joy and peace and contentment and fulfillment. Come to me, God says, and I'll give you rivers of living water.
Come to me and I'll wipe away every tear from your eyes. Come to me and I'll bring you to a place where there is no more pain, no more night, no more thorns, no more death. God says temporal thorns will lead to eternal joys if we believe his word and follow him. And do we really think we know better than the person who gave us the ability to even know anything at all? We come then to the conclusion of our text.
Where we see Paul's fruitful humility. God allowed Paul to suffer so that he would learn Humility. And that humility produced a lasting joy and contentment in Paul. The latter half of verse 9 portrays an apostle who was perfectly at peace with his life, a life that included both heavenly visions and irremovable thorns, but a life that found its satisfaction in Christ's strengthening power. Verse 9, therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me.
Folks, that's joy. And then in verse 10, there's contentment. For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions. For when I am weak, Then I am strong. Thorns are undesirable.
The trials of life we experience, like insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities, are not something we naturally want or enjoy. But when we view them through the lens of God's sovereign grace and when we use them to drive us to deeper dependence on a God who is offering eternal life, Joy and contentment in the midst of the thorns is possible. Paul understood this. Would Corinth come to understand it as well?
Now, this is not part of our sermon text today. We'll look at this next week, Lord willing. But the very next verse makes explicit what Corinth's response to these truths should have been. and they tell us what our response ought to be. Verse 11 makes it clear that Corinth's response to all of this should have been their commendation of Paul as an apostle, and thus their commendation of Paul's teaching.
If we love what God loves, we will commend what God commends, and God always commends His apostolic witness. God commends his inspired word and actually attaches our eternal happiness to our commendation. of that word. Truly God's word. This good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God, that leads to the salvation of the sinner.
It is this gospel that turns the heart of the one who resents God for being God into a heart that loves God and worships God and obeys and believes God even in the face of life's worst failures. Thorns. Friends, learn to trust the goodness and the sufficiency of God. Learn to commend and love what God commends and loves. And then you will learn.
contentment and joy. It will outlast life's thorns. Let's pray. Father, please give us the grace to believe your word. And may that belief demonstrate itself.
In a lifetime of following and obeying you, of resting in the supreme sufficiency of your Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And it is in his name I pray. Amen. Mm-hmm.
