7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great
revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to
torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from
me. 9 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may
rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses,
in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I
am weak, then I am strong.
- 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan Publishing House) 1984.
Dear Friends in Christ,
I’d like to begin with a piece of poetry I came across some time ago in a Christian periodical. It ties in well with our text and what God’s message is to us today. It is a conversation the Lord is directing to His children and is entitled:
SHADOWS
Those who walk with Me
Must sometimes walk in shadows.
You must be prepared
For silence as well as speech.
I do not always explain
What I am doing,
And I want your unqualified trust
In Me. If everything were
Absolutely clear, you would be walking
By sight, and for My own reasons,
I have called you to the walk of faith.
Faith grows in the shadows,
But shrinks in the light.
You will understand this better
When it all becomes clear.
In the shadows, practice praise.
Go steadily in the path I have laid
For you, and be of good cheer.
Anonymous
In our text for today the Apostle Paul recounts such a "shadowy" period in his life. He speaks of a particular problem he had to deal with. As a child of God, he took it to the Lord in prayer. And, as promised, the Lord answered his prayer – although not in the way Paul initially had in mind. If we had to give a title to this text and this chapter in the life of Paul, we might come up with something like this:
Working our way through this text and then drawing applications from it, we’ll note this sequence of events:
1. The problem identified
2. The prayer
3. The answer
4. The lessons learned…
To keep me from being conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. As mentioned just a minute ago, Paul was a Christian with a problem. In this opening verse he provides us with a lot of information. He explains for us, first, why he had it; secondly what it was; and thirdly, the effect it had on him…
By way of background we should know that false teachers were troubling the Corinthian congregation. (Unfortunately, this was often the case with the mission congregations Paul had begun. Shortly after he moved on, false teachers moved in.) In this case the false teachers were especially insidious. They sought to elevate their status in the eyes of this young Christian church by destroying Paul’s good name and credibility. They engaged in character assassination and put a negative "spin" on everything Paul said and did.
In the section that precedes our text, Paul defends his ministry. And in the verses immediately preceding our text, Paul speaks of special visions and revelations which the Lord granted to him and him alone; experiences that "proved" his genuineness as an apostle overagainst the "pretenders" who were slandering him.
However, lest these special revelations and visions he experienced become an object of sinful pride for the Apostle, Paul tells us that the Lord allowed a particular problem to be a part of his life. Paul’s problem, therefore, was not an accident. It was not the natural result of his labors or his enforced mode of living. It was sent by God… to keep me from being conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations.
What was it? Paul describes it only as "a thorn in the flesh" and furthermore as "a messenger from Satan." This is all he says. What exactly his problem was, we don’t know. As you might imagine, identifying this "thorn in the flesh" has been an endless source of speculation among Bible scholars throughout the centuries. Some think it was a physical problem. Among the theories: poor eyesight (the last verses of his letter to the Galatians are seen as a clue. There Paul refers to writing with large letters), epilepsy, malaria, leprosy and depression. Others think it may have been a spiritual affliction. Luther, for example, thought it might be the constant temptation to despair or doubt that he was doing any good…
Again, we don’t know exactly what it was. But we do know the effect this "thorn" had on him. It "tormented" him. That’s a pretty strong term. He doesn’t say it bothered him or it annoyed him; he says it "tormented" him. Its constant presence in his life – at least as he first perceived it – was only bad. And because Paul obviously felt that such a "thorn" was a hindrance to his ministry and, furthermore, that it held him back from being everything he thought he could be or should be for the Lord, he specifically and pointedly prayed for the Lord to rid him of it.
And not just once. Not even twice. But on three separate occasions. "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me." The word "plead" is significant. It indicates that this was not just a passing thought in his bedtime prayers, but the specific subject of what were, no doubt, intense periods of prayer in Paul’s life.
Because we are not told, we can again only speculate on the approach Paul took in these prayers. Perhaps he confronted God with logic – something along these lines: "Lord, if this is lifted, I can serve you better" or "Lord, it this is lifted, I can be much more effective in carrying out the calling you have given me." Or maybe he played on God’s sympathy: "Lord, I am your child whom you love. This is bothering me and I am in pain and I ask that you please lift this burden from me." Whatever the approach may have been, Paul undoubtedly had a dozen good reasons why the Lord should remove this burden from him, so he prayed long and he prayed hard. And, true to His form and His many promises, the Lord heard His child’s prayer, and He answered it.
And the answer was… No. Not once. Not twice. But "no" all three times. However, we hasten to add it was not just a plain "no." It was a qualified "no"; a "no" with provisions attached to it… "But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’" How God communicated this message to Paul is not told us, but what a beautiful answer the Lord gave him!
In effect, the Lord said, "No, Paul, I am not going to take this problem away from you. But what I am going to do is give you an outpouring of my grace. What I am going to do is provide you with the strength and ability to handle this problem… Furthermore, Paul, your ‘thorn’ and your ability to be effective and carry on in spite of it will serve as a powerful example of the strength that God works in and through His children. And all this will then give ultimate glory to God – which is really what you wanted in the first place." With that answer and that understanding in mind, Paul concludes: "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
The point: Knowing and having experienced the fact that God’s grace was sufficient for him whatever the situation, and knowing that in the midst of all his troubles Christ would uphold him and ultimately be glorified in the process, Paul says he willingly and joyfully "delights" in his weaknesses… "For when I am weak," meaning: when I personally am weak and troubled and in situations over which it is evident I have no control… "then I am strong," meaning: God will provide me with strength as I shift from relying upon myself to relying upon God.
The lesson Paul learned is that he could count on God’s help in every situation and problem he faced in life. Furthermore, when, humanly speaking, he was the weakest (meaning it was evident that he could not change things by his own power), then he was, spiritually speaking, actually the strongest (because he had to rely totally on God’s sufficient grace to see him through any and every situation.)… Paul knew first hand the truth written by the hymnist: In every condition, in sickness, in health * In poverty’s vale or abounding in wealth, * At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea – * The Lord, the Almighty, your strength e’er shall be.
The lessons that we learn from this interesting and thought-provoking text are the same ones discovered by Paul. What is God telling us here? I believe we can summarize God’s Word to us today in three simple thoughts…
#1: When it comes to our prayers and even our most earnest desires, God sometimes says no. This doesn’t mean He doesn’t hear us or love us or care for us. The cross of Jesus Christ and His shed blood for our forgiveness and eternal life, sinners though we be, is ample proof of God’s loving and caring nature. No, it simply means that in His providence God may choose to let a situation or a burden remain in our lives. Sometimes God may choose to answer us with what appears to be silence. Which leads us to the following thought:
#2: When God does say "no," it is a qualified no which has attached to it the promise that He will give us the strength to bear up. The promise of God that Paul records in our text did not just apply to his circumstance. When God says "My grace is sufficient for you," He is speaking to every one of His children. It is along much the same lines of another promise He gives us, this one in First Corinthians, where we are told God will never give us more than we can bear, but will either provide a way out or give us the strength to deal with it. Paul’s confidence in this shines through in this letter to the Philippians where he says of himself and every Christian, "I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength."
#3: When we are personally our weakest (meaning not able to control the situation or handle the problem by ourselves), we can be spiritually the strongest. Why? Because we shift finding the solution to our problems away from ourselves and to God, who never lets us down… whose grace is sufficient for us… who promises never to leave us or forsake us.
Let us pray that we see things this way. When we do, problems become opportunities for growth and burdens become exhibitions of God’s sustaining power in the life of His children. Too often we fret, we stew, we worry, we try different things to handle a problem and nothing seems to work. Defeated, we take it to the Lord in prayer… and the Lord steps in with the necessary solution or necessary strength to cope. And we again discover how much God does love us and how He does respond to us.
And that, pretty much, is the bottom line message of our text. Having examined it through the life of Paul, of this we can be confident: GOD RESPONDS TO THORNY PROBLEMS. His response may vary according to our needs, but, nonetheless, of this we can be sure: God is always at work, and God is always responsive.
I’d like to close today by having you listen once again to the poem read at the beginning of this sermon. It is the voice of God to Paul in our text – and to every Christian since then whom God at times asks to walk in the shadows… READ "SHADOWS"
May this be our comfort and confidence as we continue our pilgrimage on earth: God’s grace is and always will be sufficient for our every situation. Amen.