This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to chapter 12 of 2nd
Corinthians. I've got to tell you this is one of my favorite chapters in all of
scripture because it talks to us about who we really are, the struggles we all
really face, and also about who God really is and the fact that he is able to
not only use us in spite of our struggles and problems and weaknesses, but he
even uses us through our struggles and problems and weaknesses. It's an
incredibly encouraging chapter of scripture.

We're going to look at verses 1 through 6 today and as we look through this
whole chapter, we're really looking at what I would call the nutshell of 2nd
Corinthians. If you look at the whole book that's all about personal ministry
and how do you survive the struggles as a servant of the Lord? How do you
survive life's burdens?

How do you survive personal misunderstandings? How do you survive your own
feelings of inferiority? How do you survive weariness and criticism and sorrow
and discouragement?

Chapter 12 is really about how to survive it all. If I had to pick one chapter
about how to survive as a servant in this whole book, it would be chapter 12.
How do you survive life as a servant of God?

In this chapter, there are some basic keys to being the kind of servant that
survives it all. And there's a reminder throughout this chapter, throughout the
book really, that we need more than just emergency survival plans. You have to
have a permanent survival strategy.

So many of us in life, even as believers, find ourselves moving from difficulty
to difficulty. We get over one hump and then we face the next hill and we wonder
how are we going to make it? A survival strategy instead finds us moving from
victory to victory because we've discovered that although we do have
difficulties and struggles in life, there is a way to live above those problems.

There is a way to live out God's purposes in your life. So we're going to talk
about three specific things in this chapter, chapter 12, that God gives us to
help us to survive as a servant. How are you going to survive?

You've got to have a vision to sustain you. You've got to have a thorn to humble
you. And you have to have a love to motivate you.

First, first part of this chapter talks about a vision to sustain you. Listen to
what Paul says in the first six verses, "I must go on boasting. Although there
is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord.

I know a man in Christ who 14 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. And I
know that this man, whether in the body or apart from the body, I do not know,
but God knows, was caught up to paradise.

He heard inexpressible things, things that a man is not permitted to tell. I
will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except
about my weaknesses. 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. " Paul talks in these verses about a vision that he had. As he talks about
this, he reminds us that there are two basic ways to live life.

I can either be a reactionary or a visionary. Reactionary, that way of living
life, is reacting to your circumstances and your feelings, and Every day is
lived based on the present circumstances or the feelings you have in the moment.
But a visionary life is a life that is lived according to God's dreams and goals
for your life.

And Paul, maybe one of the greatest examples in all of scripture, Paul was a man
of great vision. Here he talks about being caught up. He had a vision of being
caught up to the third heaven.

The number one question by our research team of chapter 12 is, "What is the
third heaven? " It's really pretty simple. The first heaven is the sky that you
can see, the atmosphere, the blue sky that you see.

The second heaven is where you would see the stars. This is the way they talked
about it in the ancient world. So the second heaven is the stars, and the third
heaven is where God lives, this heaven you cannot see.

So it's just the heaven that we always talk about. It's not like there's levels
in heaven or anything like that. When he says third heaven, he's talking about
the heaven that we always talk about.

Not the sky, not the stars, but where God lives. Paul says, "I have this
remarkable vision of this heaven. " And he says, "I don't know if I was actually
there or not actually there, but God allowed me to see it, and he showed me
things.

" Now Paul tells us about it, but then he tells us that he can't tell us about
it. He says, "I heard inexpressible things. " The vision was so wonderful that
although he might have been able to comprehend it, he says, "God told me.

" I can't tell it all right now. It's not only beyond human words, it was
something that Paul was not to say yet. There are some things that God is
waiting to unveil for us until we get to heaven.

But Paul was allowed somehow some glimpse into the glories of heaven. Now I
don't know why he was allowed that, and I'm not, and you're not, but he was. It
was the revelation, it was the vision that God gave to Paul.

What did Paul hear? What did he see? God's throne?

Heaven's blessings? The truth is, we aren't to know. God hasn't allowed us to
know yet.

But he has allowed us to know that Paul had a vision. It was so powerful that he
had a problem talking about it even in the first person. He begins by saying it
was a man, it's happened to someone.

After a while, we're going to see that this is actually Paul that this happened
to. Paul was a man who was driven by vision. And for some reason, at this point
in his life, God needed to give Paul this vision of heaven so that he'd be
prepared for the next ministry that he had.

It was a vision that God used to sustain him. As you look throughout scripture,
Paul had many visions. He had one on the Damascus Road.

You might remember, it's a famous vision. In Acts chapter 9, he saw Jesus. He
had a vision concerning a man by the name of Ananias coming to see him.

He had a vision of Jesus' call to minister in Acts chapter 22. His call to
Macedonia in Acts chapter 16, encouraged to go to Corinth in Acts 18, and
encouraged when he was arrested in Acts chapter 23, encouraged during a storm on
a boat. He had a vision in that time.

He had vision after vision after vision in his life. You may think, why don't I
have visions like that? You do.

You do. Maybe not in the same way. Visions can come different ways.

They can come in pictures that God puts into your mind. That's what Paul seemed
to often have. They can come in dreams.

Paul talks about sometimes having that. Or a vision can be just a strong sense
of God's leading, God's presence in your life. Don't say that a vision has to
come in a certain way in order to be a vision.

When God shows you the way to go, that's a vision. And Paul's life shows us
again and again the value of vision. In this case, we could talk a lot about a
lot of things, but in this case, we see the value of daily direction and God's
protection.

When you get God's vision for your life, you've got daily direction and you've
got God's protection. You've got daily direction, the guiding, motivating voice
of God in times of confusion. The vision tells you what to do today.

It tells you the next steps to take in the direction that God wants you to go.
So instead of living by your feelings, you're living by God's direction, by the
vision. It's also a matter, though, of God's protection.

A vision gives you the encouraging, soothing, sustaining presence of God in
times of difficulty. Many times, Paul received a vision when he was going
through a tough time, when it looked like there was nowhere to turn next. And
God gave him a vision so he'd know there is a place to go next.

Paul says, you may have noticed as I read through this, he says 14 years ago
this happened. I know a man, this happened 14 years ago. Seems like this would
have been between going to Tarsus and a visit from Barnabas, a time when he went
out for training and ministry, but no one was accepting him as a minister.

And finally, his soon-to-be friend Barnabas comes and encourages him to be
introduced to the churches. Paul desperately needed encouragement, and God used
a vision to encourage him. In some ways, vision is like a rainbow.

It's found on the other side of the storms of life. Many people never experience
vision because they always run away from the storms. It's when you go through
the storms and the other side of the storms that you find vision.

Faith that survives storms builds vision in your life. This is who God wants me
to be. You begin to see it clearly.

This is what God wants me to do. You begin to know it clearly. What is this
vision for you?

It's got to be for you. It's God's vision for your life, but I can teach you
something specific from Paul. In Paul's case, this was a specific vision of
heaven.

This was a specific vision of what God had in the future. And in many ways, the
person of vision lives in two worlds. One eye on this world and one eye on the
next.

If your eye is all on heaven, your vision will dry up. I've got to be honest
with you. I didn't even like to talk about heaven for a while.

Because I looked at people who spoke a lot about heaven, and they seemed so
cynical about this world, so bitter about this world, that they couldn't love
the people in this world. There was no joy in their life. They seemed to be
waiting for joy rather than enjoying the Lord right now.

So impatient they couldn't find room in their hearts to share the good news with
others. But I learned that was just a few people. And the truth of the matter
is, it can't be all heaven, but it needs to be a lot heaven.

Because if my vision is just for this earth, that's not enough. I need a vision
for heaven. If it's all heaven, that's not enough.

It's all on earth. Your vision is going to burn out. You're just going to try to
make things work on a human basis.

It has to be both. And this hope of heaven can turn what would otherwise be
despair or apathy into a vision of hope and a vision of purpose, God's purpose.
I want you to notice one more time that Paul hadn't spoken of this openly
apparently for 14 years.

These days if somebody thinks they've received a vision, they just think they
have. It's got to be on Facebook and Twitter and everywhere else immediately.
I've got to make a book out of it.

I've got to make a movie out of it. I'm not minimizing what some have done. I
don't know other people's walk.

But I do know this. When a true vision comes into your life, it's going to
humble you. And you're going to find you don't have to tell everybody about the
vision.

You have to act in your life because you've been given a vision. Paul felt
foolish boasting about visions because he knew that was not the purpose of the
vision. The purpose of the vision was not to tell about the vision.

The purpose of the vision was to begin to live out God's purposes in his life.
So how about you? What's God's purpose?

What's God's direction for your life? Let's pray about it right now. Jesus, when
you've given a vision a direction and it's clear, it tells us what to do today.

And it tells us you'll be with us. It reminds us of the truth that you'll be
with us through each day. But when we're in those in-between times when we're
not sure of the vision or we can feel like we're wandering, we can wonder if
you're really there.

I pray for those who feel that way right now. Lord, help us to take the time to
listen to you so we can hear your vision for our lives. Instead of running ahead
of you, instead of getting caught up in our own emotions, instead of listening
to other people, help us to take the time to listen to you so that we can hear
your vision for our lives.

I pray this for each of us in Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow we're going to look
together about how you and I need to view the problems that always accompany a
life of vision.