THERE IS POWER IN WEAKNESS
Series: Living Out The Story in Our Lives
JULY 26, 2015
THE VILLAGE CHURCH
Pastor: Rev. Timothy Lewis
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There Is Power in Weakness
We are getting close to wrapping up our summer series on Living Out The
Story in Our Lives, in fact I only have one more sermon in this series and you
will have to wait out a couple of weeks before the conclusion of the series is
delivered as I am taking a week vacation time and then the week I return we are
going to have a communion service / singspiration style of service and just
celebrate through song our redeemer Jesus Christ.
Next Sunday, Lord willing, I’ll be at camp and you will be being blessed by
Pastor Harold Carpenter, as he is scheduled to come and share God's Word
with you.
I’m contemplating another series which fits nicely into our last two series… so
it kinda makes for a trilogy of sermon series. It would be something along the
lines of Living Like Jesus. I recently read a book by Randy Harris called
Living Jesus and it is an interesting read on the Sermon on the Mount. It’s not
just about understanding the Sermon on the Mount it is about living the Sermon
on the Mount, doing what Jesus said.
It’ll be a good way to spend our autumn together, so I hope you stick around
for that and come as many Sundays as you can… I’ll be here for most of them,
and I hope you will be too.
But for today and one more Sunday we are going to work on wrapping up our
current series Living Out The Story in Your Life and take a look at two final
images from 2 Corinthians.
The picture we are going to look at today is “A Thorn in the Flesh”.
I’m not going to put a picture up on the screen of a thorn in somebody’s flesh,
because frankly, nobody wants to look at that.
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There is nothing pleasant about having a thorn in your flesh, so I choose not to
show you an actual picture of that, but if you really want to imagine it in your
mind, feel free to do so.
Before we read the text, I want to give you the context to basically remind you
of what was going on in Corinth.
Our letter named Second Corinthians is the fourth letter Paul has written to this
church… he started the church… he worked there a year and a half… after that
left them for a while and came back to visit them, we know that because in the
letter he says he’s coming back again to visit them… he sent them trusted
missionaries Timothy and Titus to come and work with this new church.
But another group showed up in Corinth and convinced at least some of the
Corinthian church that Paul was an inferior apostle; and that they themselves,
the intruders, were the superior apostles.
A big part of their argument was their dazzling testimonials, incredible stories
of how God has worked through them in powerful, wonderful ways.
They bragged about exciting visions God had given them and revelations they
received from the Lord.
And they also told some stories about Paul, which as you can imagine were
unflattering.
Their stories about themselves were about how powerful they were and how
incredible they were; their stories about Paul were just the opposite.
They talked about how weak he was and using the church problems in Corinth
against him, they talked about how much of an unimpressive speaker he was.
They said he was always in trouble, shipwrecks, beatings, prison, poverty, you
name it… everywhere he went bad things happened to him.
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Certainly, in their argument, Paul was not living the victorious, powerful,
Christian life.
When Paul writes 2 Corinthians, especially the 2nd half, he is going to be
directly addressing what these outsiders are saying about him.
And he is going to do something that he hasn’t done in any of his other
writings.
Open your Bibles with me to 2nd Corinthians now, Paul is going to give a
“fool’s” speech.
I’m not going to read the whole chapter to you today; we are just going to
cover the highlights from it. You may want to read it in its entirety as it is quite
unusual for Paul.
Look at chapter 11 and verse one, this is how it starts: 2 Corinthians 11:1 (NIV2011)
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I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness. Yes, please put up with
me! Now skip down to verse 16… 2 Corinthians 11:16-23 (NIV2011)
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I repeat: Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do, then tolerate me just as
you would a fool, so that I may do a little boasting. 17 In this self-confident
boasting I am not talking as the Lord would, but as a fool. 18 Since many are
boasting in the way the world does, I too will boast. 19 You gladly put up with
fools since you are so wise! 20 In fact, you even put up with anyone who
enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or puts on airs or slaps
you in the face. 21 To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that!
Whatever anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also
dare to boast about. 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am
I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ? (I
am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more…
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Let’s stop there for a moment. At this point he is going to go on to list… not
his accomplishments, but he is going to highlight the things that make him look
inferior… prison, floggings, beatings, shipwrecks, living in constant danger,
starvation… and then he sums it all up in verse 30… 30 If I must boast, I will
boast of the things that show my weakness.
But he isn’t done, he saves the best for last… because nothing proves
superiority better than visions and revelations from the Lord and so let’s read
chapter 12 verses 1-10.
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I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to
visions and revelations from the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen
years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out
of the body I do not know--God knows. 3 And I know that this man--whether in
the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows-- 4 was caught
up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted
to tell. 5 I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself,
except about my weaknesses. 6 Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be
a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think
more of me than is warranted by what I do or say. 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.
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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.
So when people read this passage, the first question many come up with is:
What is the thorn in Paul’s flesh? OK, short answer… we don’t know!
I realize that answer doesn’t please anybody, so the commentators have written
so many theories that I’m sure you would not want to hear them all in a single
sermon or even a whole series of sermons.
But we can take all these theories of what his thorn is and categorize them into
three broad groups.
So what is Paul’s thorn in the flesh?
Some have said that it was a moral problem; the thorn was some temptation to
sin, perhaps temptation in general, or perhaps temptation for something
specific.
Not middle-aged commentators but commentators from the middle ages
thought perhaps it was the temptation to lust… this was quite popular among
the celibate clergy. Now, any young person who is devoted to sexual purity
before marriage would agree that abstinence can sometimes be torment.
Anyway that’s still a very popular theory of Paul’s thorn in the flesh.
A temptation to lust
The most popular theories, however, is that it was some sort of physical
problem he was dealing with daily.
If we were to make a list of all the specific ailments that have been proposed
over the years for his thorn in the flesh… it would be a very long list.
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Some thought it was migraines or eye problems, or epilepsy or malaria, and on
and on it goes. But it was some type of physical ailment that had no remedy.
Many more contemporary commentators are gravitating toward this
interpretation of the thorn in the flesh and that is that it was relational. Some
suggest that it was the Corinthian church itself.
I have known some preachers who thought of their church as being a thorn in
their flesh. I’m not so sure that Paul felt that way about Corinth. Others thought
that it was this particular section of the church that was causing him so much
grief.
Some scholars think that the thorn was Judaizes in general or perhaps the antiPaul movement that was seeking to discredit his apostleship.
There is another theory that cartoonist Tim Davis has come up with, that I think
is quite clever… this may appeal more to folks with small children… show pic
on screen
I know perhaps people my age or older that don’t interact with small children,
may not know who SpongeBob Squarepants is… but nonetheless that was the
messenger from Satan sent to torment him.
Well as interesting as it may be to speculate about the thorn in the flesh, there
really is no satisfactory answer, and I doubt there ever will be. And honestly
that’s okay, because the ambiguity of the thorn in the flesh allows for each
generation to relate it to the difficulties they may find themselves in.
At some point in one’s life they will more than likely experience a pain that
will seem like it will not end.
It could be temptations that refuse to go away. It could be physical problems
for which there is no remedy. It could be relational difficulties that do not get
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better and have little hope for getting better… and our only option is to learn to
live with the pain.
This is where Paul’s difficult with the thorn can be quite instructive.
Now here is what we know for sure about the thorn in the flesh.
This man he describes as being caught up into the third heaven, seeing
revelations unspeakable… that was Paul himself as we will learn later on in the
text. He was the one who was permitted to see such a magnificent revelation
from God that he was not permitted to speak of its contents.
That type of experience could really go to somebody’s head… it’s like look
how important I am, I was able to go to the third heaven (God’s residence) and
I was privileged to see and hear things that nobody on earth has ever seen or
heard.
God must think I’m something special… perhaps I’ll write a book and write of
my revelations except the things I’m forbidden to speak of.
This is how the false apostles were telling their stories… their visions caused
them to feel arrogant and superior and they would boast about how important
they are.
If you were listening carefully, Paul implies that they are lying.
He says if I were to boast about that I be doing it in truth, but I’m not going to
boast about that.
For Paul it was quite the opposite, his visions did not make him arrogant,
because God had given him a thorn to make him feel not arrogant and superior
but weak and dependent.
He had this thorn which was a constant reminder of how he needed God.
The thorn caused such distress to Paul that he begged God to take it away.
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He had to think that “How much greater work could I do for God if I didn’t
have this thorn?”
Can’t you hear him pleading his case to why the thorn should be taken away?
I sure he had some great arguments… very logical, practical arguments…
But God didn’t see it that way.
We often think, that if we have enough faith, if we just had enough faith, we
will be healed of anything.
God’s question for Paul was not, “do you have enough faith to be healed?”
His question was, “do you have enough faith not to be healed?”
Paul was not the first to suffer a thorn in the flesh… I will show this picture.
Perhaps you may remember the crown of thorns, not one thorn but an entire
crown of thorns that pressed into Jesus’ flesh.
The crown symbolizes everything Jesus suffered, the mockings, the beatings,
the ridicule, the shame, the embarrassment, the pain and eventually his death.
And Jesus you may remember asked God three times, to take it away, I’m sure
He could have had logical convincing arguments.
It’s not a case where if Jesus had a little more faith, He could have changed the
Father’s mind… Sometimes, God says no; even to our most earnest prayers.
After praying earnestly three times, Jesus accepted God’s answer of no, and
resigned His will so He might accept the Father’s will.
He went to the cross completely trusting in God the Father.
Paul asked God three times to remove the thorn, and as a great pastor once told
me, ‘“God said,’ I’m not going to change that, I’m going to change you.”
There is a point after desperation… after desperation comes resignation.
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Most often resignation is thought of as hopelessness, just throwing our hands
up and calling it quits, I’m doomed, that’s all I can take…
But for Paul, resignation may have included throwing up his hands in surrender
but it didn’t bring about a sense of doom.
For Paul it brought about a sense of confidence… the confidence wasn’t in
himself; it brought about confidence in God and in the fact that God was going
to work not just in spite of his pain, but God was actually going to work in and
through Paul’s pain to accomplish His purposes.
And of that… Paul was supremely confident.
This would not have happened if Paul was so special or so talented or because
he was so unique… it would only happen if Paul resigned himself to
completely trust in God.
God didn’t take away the thorn in Paul’s flesh, Paul couldn’t pray enough to
get rid of it, he couldn’t summon enough faith up to get rid of it… he would
have to resign himself to the fact that he has to live with it.
But more than just living with it, God said he was going to give him more than
enough grace, so the pain itself would be used to accomplish God’s purposes.
And of that Paul is supremely confident.
Paul learned a lesson that is going to keep him going no matter what happens.
That lesson is summarized in these words. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 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 weakness-es, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in
difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Not a strength manufactured by his own will, not a strength he found within himself… he
learned that God’s power is made perfect in weakness.
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