This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day two of our look through 2 Corinthians chapter 12. We're going to
look at verses seven to nine today. Yesterday we talked about the fact that if
you're going to survive as a servant in this world you have to have a vision, a
vision from God to sustain you.

Your emotions, your energy, they're not enough. You've got to have God's vision
for your life. And you wait on God's vision, you pray for God's vision.

You give God time to speak his vision into your life. That's first. And then
there's a second thing you need.

You need a thorn to humble you. You need what Paul talked about in verses seven
to nine, "To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great
revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to
torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from 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 about my weaknesses so that Christ's
power may rest on me. '" Paul talks in these verses about going from paradise to
pain, from this vision of being with God in paradise to the pain of some
suffering in his life, what he calls a thorn in the flesh. Now, what was this
thorn in the flesh?

We don't know. We don't know. There are a lot of guesses.

They range from some kind of blindness that he may have had to malaria to
actually his wife. I read one person say it was his wife, which is a crazy idea,
but that's how crazy people get when they're just guessing. All of them are just
guesses.

And the truth is there was some physical ailment or there's some emotional scar.
There was something in Paul's life that was a thorn in the flesh. Maybe it's
good that we don't know exactly what this was because we can all relate to
because all of us have some kind of a thorn in the flesh.

It may be a physical limitation. It may be an educational limitation. It may be
a limitation in the kind of family you grew up in.

It may be an emotional limitation, a psychological limitation, a mental
limitation. When Paul talks about this thorn in the flesh, he says immediately,
"It was a messenger of Satan given to me. " That's a strange phrase to us.

Before we talk about what this means in our lives, we have to talk about what
that phrase means. "A messenger of Satan given to me. " Why would God allow this
to happen?

Why does God put thorns on roses? Why does he allow pain in our lives? This is
the number one question I've noted that believers have.

Paul talks here about a messenger of Satan given to me, given by God. It's a
reminder of something. It's a reminder, first of all, of the mystery of good and
evil in this world.

I don't totally understand why God has allowed evil. I don't totally understand
how he allows Satan to work, when he allows, when he doesn't allow. I have to
admit that.

It's one of the things I most don't understand in this world. But it's also a
reminder to me that even though I don't understand the nature of evil in this
world, it is still controlled by God. The fact that I don't understand it
doesn't mean that God does not control it.

There will be one day when he does away with all evil, one day when Satan is
cast into hell forever with all of his demons, and it will be done away with.
There will be no evil in heaven. Even on this earth, though, God in some way is
controlling evil.

God in some way is allowing in my life only what he chooses to allow in my life.
Now, I have to say that with great humility because I don't understand all that
that means. But I do know that when Paul looked at it, he realized God's going
to use this.

It's Satan trying to torment me, but God, because of his power, is greater. And
because his power is greater, he can use even this. How can God do that?

How can God use a thorn in the flesh, this physical or emotional or mental or
psychological or family thorn problem, struggle that you have, this life
difficulty that you've struggled with it for years and years. It may be a part
of your life the rest of your life. You're never going to have a part of your
life where this problem is not a part of your life.

How does God use it? Paul is in our example, and he reminds us that in these
verses that thorns do two things. Thorns purify hearts and thorns magnify grace.

Thorns purify hearts. There is something about the difficulties of life that
purifies my heart. That is why God allows some thorns in our garden.

I like what Warren Wiersbie says about this passage. He says, "The Lord knows
how to balance our lives. He knows the difficulties to allow, and He knows the
successes to allow.

" And the truth is we all have thorns. You may think that those are being used
greatly of God are somehow blessed to be without thorns, but Paul's example
shows that is exactly not true. I look at the example of the friends in ministry
that I have over the years, a seminary president's manic depressive son, a
popular preacher who loses his daughter in a car accident, another who has to
live with the death of a friend through a hunting accident, a missionary who
faces the truth that his wife has Parkinson's disease again and again and again
and again.

There is this balance of spiritual power with human frailty, and the truth is
without balance, the hard truth to accept is without balance we would become so
impressed with ourselves that we'd forget to depend on God. Now I'd like to
think that that's not true, but Paul realized that it is true, and so he says
specifically here, "To keep me from being conceited, God has allowed this to
continue in my life. " God used him in such amazing ways.

He allowed him such amazing visions. Paul says, "To keep me from being
conceited, He's allowed this thorn in the flesh to continue. " Now we all think
I won't get conceited, which really shows how conceited we can get, because any
of us can allow conceit and pride to overwhelm our lives.

The truth is, the truth is if everything always goes right, my heart is
eventually going to go wrong, because I'm going to begin to think it's me. I'm
going to begin to think I'm better. I'm going to begin to think God somehow has
shown a light on me that he hasn't shown on anyone else.

You think you're not going to think that, but Paul was honest enough spiritually
to realize that's exactly what I'm going to think. So thorns purify hearts, and
then thorns do a second thing. Thorns magnify grace.

There is this phrase, this phrase in these verses when Paul talks about his
thorn in the flesh that has carried so many people through so many difficult
times, "My grace is sufficient for you. " Paul talks here about sufficient
grace, the fact that there is never a shortage of grace. Sufficient means a
freedom from want, a life satisfaction.

There is a life satisfaction that grows out of grace, out of recognizing his
undeserved love in your life. Life then becomes a gift to be enjoyed rather than
a struggle to be endured. You still have struggles, no doubt about it, but you
see the gift, the gift of grace.

God has given you life. God has given you ministry. God has given you eternity.

God has given you his love. Nothing, nothing can take that away from you. Grace
encourages you to realize that whatever you face, he loves you.

Whatever your struggle, he is at work in you. As I read this phrase this week, I
don't know why. My mind went way back to college days, which is way back for me
now.

And I remember Dr. Charles McKay, one of our teachers, a great pastor, who'd
come to teach us young guys about ministry. His wife died one semester, and so
he missed several weeks of classes while he dealt with the death of his lifelong
companion.

I'll never forget the look in his eyes when he came back to teach the first
class. And you can tell he was a weary man. He was missing his wife.

There was an emptiness in his eyes, but there was also a light there. And he
looked at us with that light, and he said, "Man, I want to tell you, God's grace
is sufficient. I don't know what you're facing right now.

I don't know what you're going through, but I can tell you, God's grace is
sufficient. It is stronger. It is more powerful than whatever you're facing.

" And thorns magnify the sufficiency of God's grace. Thorns clarify the kind of
purity that God wants in my life. Father, I don't want to go through problems.

None of us do. I want no thorns in my garden. No one likes thorns, but Lord, you
allow them.

You allow them. And I could get caught up in trying to understand why this thorn
or why not that thorn, but instead of getting caught up in that, Lord, help me
to instead get caught up in you, your love, your grace, and the fact that even
through some terrible thing that Satan throws at my life to try to torment me,
you can instead purify my heart. You can instead magnify your grace.

Lord, I don't want to end up bitter. I don't want to end up feeling separate
from you or apart from you, so instead of blaming you for the thorn, instead of
blaming you because I don't understand, I want from this moment on to trust you
even with this. I trust you with this thorn.

In Jesus' name, amen.