The broken and future Grace

Daniel Patz, Lead Pastor

Grace Church, Sunday Worship

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

August 14th, 2011 

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 ESV  (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 conceited.  (8)  Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  (10)  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 Brokenness and Weakness of Everyone

- Maybe you grew up in a painful situation with parents that still leave a hurtful mark in your life.
- Maybe you have a husband who should be leading but isn't do it.
- Maybe you have a wife who isn't supportive of your burdens for ministry.
- Maybe you a past marriage that is impacting the present in a painful way.
- Maybe you long to lose weight.
- Maybe you are overwhelmed with parenting and it doesn't seem to stop.
- Maybe the person you married is just not the person you thought she or he was and it weighs on you.
- Maybe you deal with forms of depression.
- Maybe you have been burned by a church or people and you havent gotten over it.
- Maybe your body seems to be crumbling and if only you could have freedom from the pain or increased energy.
- Maybe you find yourself at a certain age and in comparison to many others you don't feel like you have accumulated or accomplished much. You feel like a failure.
- Maybe your teenagers don't care for you and make every things so difficult.
- Maybe you long for a relationship that just hasn't happened. Maybe it is wanted spouse or best friend.
- Maybe your work is treating you unfairly.
- Maybe your job is unsatisfying.
- Maybe you are without a job and you can't find one.
- Maybe your kids are growing up and the "good ole days" feel in the past.
- Maybe you husband is always gone at work or traveling.
- Maybe you grown kids are running from God and it grieves you.
- Maybe the finances are discouraging tight you can't make any progress on your debt.
- Maybe your schedule always feels out of control.
- Maybe everyone around you feel so hard to love.
- Maybe you feel like no one really cares to be with you and hear your heart. You long for a close friend.
- Maybe you are up constantly at night with the kid.
- Maybe you long for kids and you cant so far.
- Maybe you or your spouse struggles with discontentment and it makes life so hard.

1. PAUL’S AFFLICTION

“a thorn was given me in the flesh…” (v. 7)

A. It’s Source: Where did it come from?

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.  (v. 7)

GOD is sovereignly working in His life in this.

God uses Satan as the tool.

Job

Joseph

Jesus

There is a general lesson of considerable importance here. Many people go through life trying to isolate this incident or that event as the exclusive work of Satan or the exclusive work of God. This almost always leads to doubtful interpretations of events, and may end up in the cultic view of guidance. Certainly this approach does not listen very carefully to what the Scriptures say on these matters. Consider the death of Jesus Christ. Luke recognizes that the sequence of betrayal, arrest, torture, rigged courts, and crucifixion is the hour "when darkness reigns" (Luke 22:53); he explicitly states that all this came about "with the help of wicked men" (Acts 2:23) and as the result of an ugly conspiracy (4:27). Yet at the same time, all these events came about as a result of what God's "power and will had decided beforehand should happen" (v. 28). Thus there is a sense in which the death of Jesus was a work of great evil, and all responsible for it are culpable; but there is also a sense in which it was a work of God acting in love, the result of his redemptive purpose to establish a new humanity under a new covenant sealed with the blood of his Son. It is not that God came into the plan after the fact and turned it around for good. Far from it: the Bible insists it was God's plan from the beginning, the very reason why he sent his Son in the first place. Yet God's sovereignty in the matter does not in any way diminish the responsibility of all those connected with Jesus' death.

D. Carson. A Model of Christian Maturity: An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 10-13 (p. 151). Kindle Edition.

B. It’s Severity: How bad was it?

Paul is no wimp.

2 Corinthians 11:23-28 ESV  (23)  Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one--I am talking like a madman--with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.  (24)  Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.  (25)  Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea;  (26)  on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers;  (27)  in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.  (28)  And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.

C. It’s Service: What was it’s design and purpose?

“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations…”

Here is a similar situation:

2 Corinthians 1:8-9 ESV  (8)  For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.  (9)  Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

2. PAUL’S PETITIONS

(8)  Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 

A. Their Content: He asked for it to be removed

B. Their Intimacy: He plead with the Lord (whom He knew well)

C. Their Persistence: He asked three time (three different seasons)

It was proper and right to pray for healing or removal.

It was proper and right to ray persistently – Jesus taught us to pray without fainting.

Luke 18:1ff

3. GOD’S RESPONSE

He answers – “NO, I have something better.”

Relief: Yes. Removal: No.

Promise/Proverb: “My grace is sufficient; my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Gideon in Judges 7

God works this way – He brings us to an understanding of weakness and then manifests His power.

God did indeed answer Paul's prayer, but not as the apostle wished. Calvin rightly distinguishes between means and ends in prayer. The end that Paul wanted was relief from the thorn, and he simply assumed that the means would be the thorn's removal. But God granted the ends by another means: he gave relief from the thorn, not by removing it, but by adding more grace, sufficient grace. The

D. Carson. A Model of Christian Maturity: An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 10-13 (p. 154). Kindle Edition.

Paul's thorn is not followed by grace; rather, grace is given him to enable him to cope with the weakness that is not removed. Very often in the Scriptures, weakness is not the condition of grace in the sense that it serves as the necessary precursor of grace, but in the sense that it serves as a continuing vehicle of grace.

D. Carson. A Model of Christian Maturity: An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 10-13 (p. 155). Kindle Edition. 

Piper:

Not grace to bar what is not bliss, Nor flight from all distress, but this: The grace that orders our trouble and pain, And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.

4. PAUL’S ACCEPTANCE

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  (10)  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.

He accepts God’s answer and hopes in God.

There comes a time when we need to accept God’s answer and open our eyes to the grace He is giving us right now.

Like Paul we need to embrace God’s priorities – to have His power manifest in our lives.

Paul is prepared to stop praying for the removal of the thorn, not because he enjoys this or any other messenger of Satan, but because he knows that the "power of Christ manifests to the full its irresistible energy and attains its highest results by performing works of power with powerless instruments" (Wilson). That

D. Carson. A Model of Christian Maturity: An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 10-13 (p. 157). Kindle Edition.