nourish our souls, draw us to fix our attention afresh and anew on Christ and to have the right perspective of the world in which we live and all of the circumstances and all of the challenges, all the tests and all the tribulations that come our way because we're still here. To your glory and in your name we lift these prayers and pray them for Jesus' sake. Amen. You may be seated. Well, as you can tell this morning, this text is loaded and in fact it was my, it was my plan originally to take us through verse 10. But I don't see us getting beyond verse 7 this morning. So in two weeks when I'm back with you, we'll be back in this text and we're going to continue gleaning There's just too much, well, there's not too much rich content here. There's so much rich content that we're gonna take out our microscopes and look at it carefully, almost word by word. It's like a soothing ointment for the inflamed tissues of our lives. So bear your souls this morning to the healing and energizing balm that is the word of God. Notice with me first in our text this morning verses 5 and 6 what I will call a peculiar boast that Paul is making here. A peculiar boast, if you look at those verses you'll see that these verses transition from Paul's unutterably glorious experience of heaven, of paradise, and of revelations of God that God gave to him to transition from those to his current situation of weakness and sufferings. Paul's experience of visions and revelations of the Lord when he was in some mysterious way taken up into heaven. It is an authenticating experience. It is something that Paul can point to as evidence that is in the greater context of what he is doing here. that he is an apostle of Christ, and that these Corinthians need to give their attention to him, and not to those guys who have swooped in behind him and tried to say, don't follow Paul, follow us. It is an authenticating experience. It is simply, though, what he experienced. To speak of it is really not to say anything great about Paul, because it is an experience, not accomplished by Paul, but one that God just made him a part of. But Paul doesn't desire for the Corinthians or anyone else to assess his ministry on the basis of those experiences. Yes, they lend credibility, but Paul is more concerned with what people hear from Paul and see from Paul and know about Paul. And so he wants the Corinthians to make a determination about their willingness and resolve to follow him as an apostle of Christ. on what they experience in him personally. And in this way, then what they observe is his own personal weaknesses. So Paul says, you know, I could speak about this trip to heaven. And I mentioned it just to say, you know, it is an authenticating thing that he would take me there. But I want you to look at me. and what you see and what you hear. I want you to see in those things and hear in those things that I am Christ. So what do you see when you look at me? Weaknesses. Yes, you see weaknesses. And Paul says that is what I am going to boast about. And there is a reason for that. which we are going to see this morning. These things, these weaknesses actually demonstrate that I am Christ's because my weaknesses expose the power and strength of Christ in me. It's not when I look all strong and undefeatable in myself that I display the strength and power of Jesus. It's winning my weakness. I have no strength to stand on my own. He is holding me. So Paul makes this peculiar boast of his weaknesses. It's not what I am that credits me as an apostle, but what I'm not. It's not how strong I am, but how strong Christ is through me. Such a boast is clearly opposite to the boast of those false prophets there in Corinth, who were saying, look at us. We can speak so eloquently. Look at us. We are so rich. Look at us and who we are. And Paul said, look at me, I'm nothing, but what Christ is through me. And so we come to focus on a particular example of Paul's weakness that he outlines in this passage. It's center stage in verse 7. It is a thorn. a painful thorn, Paul writes these words, 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. This verse is so loaded. It says before us, for one thing, this image of a thorn. The word that Paul uses here can also be used of a splinter or a stake because the essence of what this word is concerned with is something that is sharp and that sticks. Paul gives us this image of a sticker that is embedded in the skin. It's an image also that is used, that God used as warning the Israelites. concerning what would happen if they didn't run out all the foreign peoples from the land of promise. In Numbers chapter 33 verse 55, Moses speaks to them the words of the Lord. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes. and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. Just as the inhabitants remaining in the land would mean trouble for the Israelites, so it is whenever you get a sticker or a thorn or a splinter in your flesh. It is something just about all of us can relate to. I'd say if we hold, anybody who has not gotten a splinter in your life, hold up your hand. I see one. Well, we're gonna take you after the service and indoctrinate you, Leroy, so you can experience what we've all experienced. No, I'm joking. But a particular instance stands out in my life. I've had my share of stickers. I've had my share of thorns. When Philip, however, was about four years old, my son, Philip, was running outside to go play on the swing set. And outside of our door was a long, wooden, old stair rail. And in his giggling and delight of looking forward to go out to the playground, he put his hand on that thing as he began to run down the stairs. And suddenly his joy and excitement and anticipation was turned to sadness and horror. There was a piece of wood deeply embedded in his hand. He still remembers that we were talking about it on the phone just the other day. He shudders at the thought. The only thing that he remembers that's worse than the splinter was the fact that mama was going to have to hold him down while daddy got a needle and probed in that skin to get it out. He says, I still shudder at those thoughts. You know, you want to get, when you get a splinter out, you want to get it all. You leave any part of it, what's gonna lead to? More pain, infection, and more trouble. We need also to notice in this text where this thorn came from. Notice what Paul says about this thorn. There was given me a thorn. The giver of this thorn, we need to notice, A thorn is embedded in Paul, but he sees it as a kind of gift. It was given to him. Painful and reprehensible as thorns are, Paul says it was given to him. Now whenever you got your last splinter or thorn, I dare say that you did not announce to the world that you had received a thorn. Or that you were given a thorn. But that's what Paul says. He was not assaulted by a thorn. He was not stuck by a thorn. He did not get a splinter stuck in his hand. He was given a thorn. The language plus the context indicates that Paul saw this thorn ultimately as coming from God. It was not there by accident. God gave Paul this thorn as it was God who was concerned that he not be puffed up with conceit. God is sovereign over all things. Not a bird falls from the sky apart from the will of God. Not a drop of rain descends from heaven except that it waters the ground precisely according to the decree of the Lord. And not a thorn is embedded in our flesh apart from the wise direction and plan of God. where there is no such thing as luck and no such thing as chance. All things fit into his wise design, including thorns. Paul is the very one who assures the Romans over in chapter eight that God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love God and who are called according to his purpose. In the theology of the Bible, which is truth, this is true theology. In the theology of the Bible, God uses even thorns for the well-being of his people. And so in Paul's understanding, this thorn is a gift from God. And God knows what he's doing. And he can be trusted to put thorns where they need to be, when they need to be there. And he is ultimately the one whose permission must be sought if those thorns are to be removed or extracted. God's gifts sometimes seem so unlikely. A thorn, that's anything but what I'd usually, in my flesh, consider a gift. God uses clay pots in which to put the treasure of the gospel so that His glory and His power might be demonstrated. God uses a nomadic man from a nowhere place in a nowhere time and says to him, Abraham, come after me. I am going to make your descendants like the stars of the heavens. And God takes this measly group of nomadic people and He makes them His and His glory shines through them despite their ongoing disobedience towards Him. God uses a shepherd. to become a king. God himself becomes the supposed son of a country carpenter, to be born in a stable, to be raised in a place like Nazareth, to become the Lamb of God that bears our sins away. And God uses thorns for good in the lives of His people. We all want to know exactly what was this thorn that Paul was talking about. Endless efforts have been made by scholars to say, well it was this or it was that. And the truth of the matter is Paul is not specific enough for us to be certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was talking about a certain thing. And that's okay, because knowing precisely what the thorn was is clearly not Paul's point. And it would not necessarily help us to know. What we need to know is that God takes things that cause us pain, heartache, difficulty, and struggle, things that alarm and discomfort us, and He uses those for our good and for His glory. And so we need to accept His gifts, even when they're unpleasant. even when they sting, even when they hurt us deeply. Indeed, the Lord was the overarching giver of the thorn. But Paul also tells us that Satan himself was involved in this thorn. Notice how he refers in this verse to this thorn that was given him. The instrument of this thorn was a messenger from Satan. This thorn equates to a messenger of Satan sent to harass Paul. It's a demonic emissary sent from Satan himself to Paul to torment him. And just because we are believers in Christ does not mean that we are somehow above the opposition of Satan. We are in the middle of the battle. We are in the middle of life and he comes to us. The fact that he schemes to interfere with and overturn the purposes of God is clear. There is an ongoing battle between the forces of the devil and the people of God. As long as we live in this world, we will face it. Spiritual warfare is real. Remember when Jesus sounded the alarm to Peter? Simon. Simon. Satan has demanded to sift you as wheat. And Jesus didn't say, but I've stopped him. He won't come near you. He did not say that. But he did say this, I have prayed for you. But he has demanded to sift you like wheat. And the indication that he was going to get to sifting was the fact that Jesus said to Peter, when you return, strengthen your brothers. Satan is going to have you. Know it. Be ready for it. Of course, the Old Testament book of Job demonstrates that Satan takes it as a challenge from God to go after his servants, to attempt to dislodge them from faith in the Lord. But the truth is that Satan is ever under the sovereign hand of God. He can go this far, but no further. And that's a truth in which we can take great joy. We can know that he's sovereign over it. Satan has demanded to sift you as wheat. But I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned, Jesus said to Peter, strengthen your brothers. It is comforting and assuring to know that even when Satan has his way, God has his. Satan can't do anything but accomplish the will of God and play a role in the plan of God that he is working from eternity past to eternity future. Satan's messenger was the instrument of the thorn, but God was the giver of it. And that's the way it is in our lives. I mean, Satan, we're not immune and we're not above the attacks of Satan. But God is sovereign over it all. And when thorns come into our lives by the instrumentality of the devil, if we are believers, we can be assured that this is nevertheless under the plan of God and His purposes for us in the midst of it are good purposes. I do want you to notice However, pain of the thorn administered by the messenger of Satan. Thorn in and of itself is a conveyor of the idea of pain. But there is more here. It is expressed by Paul in the word that is translated in the ESV from which I am reading as harass. A messenger from Satan that he might harass me. Well, the New American Standard Version and the NIV both translate that word as torment. And the King James Version translates that word buffet, to buffet me, which really comes closest to the literal meaning of the word. that's used there, it's the idea of the word that Paul used is the word that means to beat, as with a fist. When Jesus stood before the high priest at his mock trial, Matthew uses this very word to describe the action of the soldiers or the people around Jesus to him. When it says, not only did they spit on him, but they beat him, they struck him, they punched him. Peter uses that word in 1 Peter 2 verse 20, of the beating of a slave for being disobedient to his master. And so the picture here is of a thorn, but it's then taken to the next step to demonstrate that the experience of this thorn was like getting a beating from the devil. Not just a small puncture wound in your skin, but something that in fact comes at you in a powerful, debilitating way. More than the deep sharp pain of a thorn, here is the pounding associated with crushing blows delivered by the messenger of Satan who harshly delivers blow after blow after blow that saps life, that bruises and causes swelling to take place. When you think of Paul in this situation, his picture that he's painting is not just a little red spot with a sticker in it. It's actually of a man who's been in a heavyweight boxing match and gone all 15 or however many rounds that they go. And he's beat up. He is beaten to a pulp. He is bruised and battered. And do you know, it's been a long time since I watched one of those boxing matches. But I do remember in years gone by that at the end of those things, the two men who've been involved can hardly stand up. They both almost are drug to the ring to see which one wins. You think at that point you could probably beat one of them because they're so weak. That's kind of the picture I think Paul wants to have in our mind of what this thorn involves. It's a beating. that buffets us, that weakens us, that saps strength. This is true weakness. It's not the experience of one punch, but an ongoing experience. This buffeting was not a one, oh, that's it. No, buffets is ongoing experience of beatings that are falling upon Paul by the messenger of Satan. Well, you know what this is like to some extent, right, in your own life. Maybe you're not quite that beaten up, but sometimes it seems like the messengers of Satan just will not let up. You get knocked down over and over and over. You get beaten. The image that we really come to is the image of Jesus when he was beaten and tormented before his crucifixion. The Apostle Paul could certainly relate to that. But you don't hear notes of despair coming out in the Apostle Paul. In fact, here's where he's saying, this is a living, breathing vindication of apostleship. I'm weak. I'm like a fighter who's almost beaten up by the devil. Down, but not out. And this verse finally tells us that there was a purpose for the thorn. In fact, the purpose is from beginning to end. Paul says it at the beginning of the verse and he says it again at the end as though to say, don't miss this. The thorn in the middle is bracketed on either side by the importance that it bears in my life. This thorn was given to Paul to keep him from becoming conceited, to keep him from pride to keep him from being full of himself. The word conceited refers to a condition of the mind and heart in which a person highly esteems himself, thinks everybody else ought to serve him. Everybody else is no good compared to him. Conceited people are indeed full of themselves, consumed with self-importance. and look down at others. And the Bible character that comes to my mind when I think of conceit is a man named Haman from the Old Testament. Do you remember Haman? Haman served King Ahasuerus in the days of Esther. And the king had promoted Haman and put him in charge of all the officials and Haman was full of himself. He was known to call friends and his wife together. and to sit them down and to tell them how great he was, how rich he was, how many sons he had, and how the king had promoted him to such a high position. Haman just gloated when the king's servants bowed before him. But there was one man who wouldn't bow. His name was Mordecai. He wouldn't bow and he wouldn't pay homage to Haman. And do you think Haman took kindly to that? In his self-absorbed narcissism, he despised Mordecai, the uncle of Esther. Haman became infuriated by the defiance of Mordecai and decided to take Mordecai down by taking his people with him. He devised a plan to destroy all the Jews throughout the entire kingdom, and he built a gallows on his own property, which was his plan on which to hang Mordecai. God hates conceit. Human pride is abhorrent to God. He made us. He gives us everything that we have, everything that we enjoy, every pleasure, every strength. It's from Him who are we to puff up our chest and beat our chest as though we are something when we are what He has made. It's an affront to God for human beings to behave with self-importance and God demonstrates it in the unfolding drama in the book of Esther. Ahasuerus decided to honor Mordecai because Mordecai helped spoil a plot to kill the king. And so The king turned to Haman one day in a search for ideas of how to honor a deserving man and asking for ideas, Haman thought to himself, who would the king desire to honor more than me? And so he told the king that such a man should be dressed in the king's robes, placed on the king's horse and led through the city by one of the king's most noble officials and that his honor be proclaimed for all to hear. And so the king said, Haman, do this for Mordecai. Conceit was turned to humiliation and further anger and what is more, When the king learned about the plot that Haman had made to kill all the Jews, he protected Mordecai from the gallows that Haman had built and instead sentenced Haman to hang on that very gallows. What does that tell you about how God looks at conceit? Human conceit, God will turn on its head. In part, that is what judgment is about at the end of the age. It is taking down humans who have been so full of themselves as to reject God's law, as to disobey God, as to have no care in the world for what the maker of the universe decrees is what is right to be done in the context of his universe by those he's made in his own image. He will bring them down because he hates conceit. Well, coming back to the life of Paul here, God had been so abundant in his mercies toward Paul that it was necessary to keep him from conceit. And that therefore was the purpose of this thorn. It was the surpassing greatness of the revelations of God that led God to apply the thorn to the life of Paul. In this letter to the Corinthians, Paul use the expression that he does here, the surpassing greatness of the visions. He used it a couple of times other places in 2 Corinthians. In chapter 1 verse 8, Paul speaks of his afflictions in Asia. And basically he uses this word to say they were beyond our ability to endure. It's when he said that he feared himself of life. He thought his life was over. The trials were so brutal. They were so surpassingly great. The Apostle Paul uses these words of the revelations that he experienced. They were surpassingly great. They were amazing. They were unutterable. Not only was Paul not allowed to speak about his experience in paradise, he was incapable of speaking about his experience in paradise. This was surpassing greatness. Paul uses this word elsewhere also to describe the weight of glory that God is storing up for His people. In chapter 4, I think it is verse 10. The surpassing weight of glory. It's more than we can imagine. What God has for His people those reconciled with Him through Christ is incomprehensible. It is beyond our ability to grasp. And we are just too much in this world. We care too much for the things in this world. We are too attached We underestimate the glory of God and the greatness of what He has for us. And the evidence is how much time we waste caring about the stuff and the life that we live here. And the evidence is how little time we spend trying to take others with us to glory. So great is what Paul saw that he had to have a thorn to keep his feet on the ground and his pride under control. Thorns have their purpose in our lives. We just don't even comprehend how patient God is. That the God of this universe who is perfectly holy and righteous would bear with us in our defiance. who would give us His Son and reach out to us, not once, twice, but constantly, in overtures of mercy and grace, calling to Himself. The resistance in our hearts is so powerful that He, in fact, must overcome that by His own strength to turn us back to Himself. And we don't think very often of the magnitude of mercy and grace and power. God has visited us in this way to be overwhelmed with thankfulness and amazement. And the evidence is we start complaining in life. This thorn helps magnify in Paul's own example how much God has blessed us and how powerful pride is in our hearts. See, we evidence conceit. We evidence pride. Whenever we accept all the good things from God and then when there is something that is the least bit hurtful or the least bit of an inconvenience, we utter His name as if He is to be cursed. We have an attitude that's expressive of how this should not be. God, what are you doing? That's not what the Apostle Paul does in this passage. He says to us, and he says of himself, this storm, it's a gift. It's a gift I need. It was given to me to keep me from pride, to keep me from conceit, to keep me from being on the receiving end of such glorious images of what God has in store for His people and not become puffed up. We look at thorns in such a skewed kind of a way. Because we look at ourselves in a skewed kind of a way. This passage is given to us this morning to help us look at ourselves in a right way. And therefore to look at thorns themselves in a right way. To not look at them as the enemy. but to look at them as God's plan in our lives to keep us humble before Him, to keep us gracious, to keep us full of gratitude before Him, to not let us think that in some way, some fashion, we deserve what's coming. We don't. We don't deserve it. I mean, just the way that Paul even talks about heaven. And I'm talking about the future heavens and the new heavens and the new earth that God has planned and He's going to bring about for the eternal dwelling of His people. You know, it is unspeakably amazing. Heaven has got to be, it's beyond our comprehension. And you say, of course it is. And I say, wait a minute. It's so far beyond, of course. Don't flippantly say, of course it is. We read the pictures, we read the images in the Bible and we think of gold and we think of pearls. And yet these things are just efforts to somehow help us to grasp something of it. The fullness of it, we can't understand. The ability then to put into perspective the sufferings of this life. We just so often, we make too much of our sufferings. We make too much of them because we don't make enough of what He has for us. We underestimate God. And I'm here to tell you today, in light of these things, if you are His child, What God has laid up for you in terms of His glory and fellowship with Him for all eternity is something that is so far beyond our ability to conceive. That we can't be satisfied to think it's like golden streets. As though that's not much. ounce of desire for pleasure that we experience right now will be more and more and more than poured upon us in the presence of God for all eternity. So we fill up ourselves with things in this world thinking This might satisfy. This is important. I'm going to hold on to this. And I'm talking about, yeah, not just worldly possessions, but I'm talking about our health. I'm talking about our strength. I'm talking about our set of circumstances that we want to look like this. And God may say, no, it's going to look like this. And the reason is, there's something more important than you having life the way you planned it and the way you want it. The way you think you want it. Because what you really want, and I know it for all eternity, is you want You should want me. You want to reflect me. And you want to experience me in your fullness because nobody else can feel you like me. So I'm going to do this in your life. And I'm going to bring these thorns. I don't want you to be conceited. I don't want you to be prideful. I don't want you to be walking around full of self-importance. Because that, in essence, locks me out. It's when you walk in dependence upon me. It's when you're on your face crying out, God, please help. God, come to my aid. I can't make it without you. That's where you need to be. Because that's the truth. That is the truth. And so that's the reason for thorns. Our sinful flesh requires them to keep under control. So thank God for his thorns. But thank God also for the bearer of thorns. When God spoke to Adam after the fall, he said, because you've listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. And in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you." Ultimately, the thorns that we suffer are because of sin. Do not think it a mere coincidence then that when Jesus was in the custody of the Roman soldiers, they readied him for crucifixion by weaving together a crown of thorns which they placed upon his head. He is the king of suffering. Jesus is able to be our great high priest for us as sinners because he bore our thorns. The thorns in His flesh were for our transgressions. He underwent suffering to accomplish the righteousness demanded by the justice of God. And the writer of Hebrews explains, we read it earlier this morning, in the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears. to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through that which he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. Jesus' offering for sin satisfies God's justice for us. Reconciliation with God for sinners can be found in Christ alone. Brothers and sisters, we have an amazing Savior. Every thorn you experience, think about the thorns that He bore, not just the ones on His head, but the fullness of sin and its weight that came upon Him that He suffered under in order to purchase us from it. and to bring us in reconciliation to God. Take refuge in that kind of suffering every single day. And I especially point to Christ those in this room who've not yet denied yourselves to follow Christ. You've not yet taken up your cross. You've not yet said yes to Jesus. You've not yet received the gift of salvation from Him. I point you to Him. He is a great Savior. He's worth taking up your cross for. He's worth enduring some thorns for. He alone can save. And the Bible says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. But whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. And then lastly, I have this word for all of us. It's a word of hope. You think about thorns and you think about your experiences of being beat up by the servants of Satan in this life and by trials and hardships and difficulties. Here's this word. We can suffer under thorns in this life in part because we see that God has a plan and purpose for them. We know they are for our good, but even more good news comes from Ezekiel 28 verse 24. Speaking of a time when God's enemies are judged, the word of the Lord through this prophet is this, and as for the house of Israel, there shall be no more a briar to prick. or a thorn to hurt them among all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt, then they will know that I am the Lord." The time for thorns is now. I'm just warning you, this is the time for thorns. Don't be surprised by thorns. Don't be undone by thorns. Don't let your faith be brought to nothing by thorns. Continue to trust in Him, in your weakness. You experience His strength as no other time, and no other place, and no other circumstance. It's in the recognition of who we are as people, and who He is as God, and the God not only that made us, but the God who saves us. It is in that experience that we have the fullness of joy and the fullness of resting in Him, to Him be the glory. The time for thorns is now, but the eternity that God holds out for His people that is greater than tongue can express is full with the knowledge of God and it is empty of thorns. We have them now for their purpose, but we don't have them forever if we're His. On the other hand, if you're not His, and you don't receive the salvation gift that He's given, offers you in Christ, the thorns you have here in this world, in this life, they're just the beginning. Because they're meant to point you to Him, and if you refuse Him forever, you'll be refused by Him forever. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for our thorns. We don't like to say that. Our flesh doesn't like to say that. We want them all to be taken away. We don't want to have to experience the stickers in our lives, the problems, the hurts, the pains, the sufferings, the beatings. Please forgive us for being so full of ourselves and for being so full of this world that we're trying to latch on here and there to things that are passing away. Please forgive us, Lord. and draw us into the comfort of your hand. Draw us to the assurance and the peace of being beaten up but on the mat before you saying, God, you are my help. God, you are my hope. Lord, help us to have in you confidence in the strength that's offered to us by Christ. Not a strength of our own, but that which is from heaven. That which comes from Him. Lord, to You be the glory. Accomplish Your purpose when You give us thorns. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.