2 Corinthians 12–13

0:00 Well, good morning, everybody. I'm glad you're here with us here at Third Avenue Baptist Church. We are about to spend the next 45 or so minutes doing something that the world around us would find exceedingly strange. We're about to open up a 2,000-year-old letter and spend some number of minutes studying a portion of that letter very carefully.

0:32 Now, why would we do that? Why would we open up a 2,000-year-old letter that was written from one guy to another group of people in a city that most of us have never been to and study it for some kind of benefit from ourselves? Well, the reason is because that letter, 2 Corinthians, is part of this book right here, the Bible, which we as a church, we as a people, understand to be the Word of God written. We understand that every single word of this book in all of its 66 different parts is entirely true, entirely without error, and entirely sufficient to help us know what is true and what is necessary in the Christian life and even in the human life.

1:12 So that's why we do this. What we do over the next few minutes, we call expositional preaching. It comes from the word expose because what I'm trying to do as I stand up here, open up this letter and preach it to you is essentially expose this book to you. Expositional. I'm trying to open this book up so that you understand it. And what I'm praying also, on the other hand, as it concerns that word expose, is that the Holy Spirit will expose you to this word. I'm hoping that he will open up your heart and let this word get deep down into it so that you can be changed according to his power. So take a Bible if you've got one and turn over to page, well if you're using a Red Pew Bible like this. 970 if you're not using this particular Bible. 2 Corinthians chapter 12 and 13. That's where we're going to be today. We're actually finishing up our study of the book of 2 Corinthians this morning. We've been in it for the last seven or eight weeks, kind of making our way through it just a little bit at a time. Today we're going to be looking at the last two chapters of the book. Let me give you a quick history about where this book came from. The

2:14 Apostle Paul had come to Corinth after he became a Christian. He became a missionary to Gentile believers like outside the realm of Jerusalem. He'd come to Corinth in about the year A.D. 50, so was that 1970 years ago or something like that, came to the city of Corinth in about A.D. 50 during his third missionary journey to preach the gospel he hoped all over the Roman Empire. Now because Corinth was situated on a key ocean-going trade route between two really important parts of the Roman Empire, Corinth had become fabulously wealthy by the time Paul got there. It was also kind of an unlikely place for a new Christian church to take root because of its central location, because of all the traffic that was constantly coming through the city. It had become a hub for all kinds of things. Business, sex, gambling, religious paganism, and with that all kinds of deviancy and immorality too. It was just not the kind of place that you would say, I think this is going to be

3:15 the best city for a Christian church to take root. It just didn't look like it was going to work. But by God's grace, Paul had managed to plant a church there. And for about four years, everything seemed to be going just fine. Things seemed to be going well. But then in about the year AD 54, four years into the church's life, some people arrived at the church whom Paul throughout this book calls kind of derisively super apostles and these super apostles threw the church into turmoil. Now you can read between the lines a little bit in 2nd Corinthians and a couple places in other of Paul's letters also and get a little bit of info but it's hard to tell exactly what these super apostles were teaching. Paul just doesn't say a whole lot about it. It seems to have been some kind of mix of a Christianized asceticism, but also mysticism, which ironically led these people to believe that if they had asceticism in these certain areas of their lives, like, you know, as concerns food and as concerns marriage and a few other things, if they

4:16 just were ascetic about these things, they could be licentious in everything else in life and basically do whatever they wanted to as long as they kept a few rules over here. That seems to be kind of the teaching that Paul was dealing with. Most concerningly though, these super apostles had also urged the Corinthians to abandon the gospel that Paul had preached to them in favor of what they were calling the gospel and also to reject Paul himself and just decide that he was a shyster who was only pretending to be an apostle in order to take advantage of them. Well over the year or so that those super-apostles had been there, that kind of thinking had wormed its way into the Corinthians' minds. And now, in AD 55, when Paul writes 2 Corinthians, that kind of thinking, an abandonment of the gospel, a rejection of Paul as an apostle, was really threatening to reduce the church to nothing but a smoking ruin. There was going to be nothing left of it if Paul didn't do something. And so that's why he wrote this letter of 2 Corinthians. Now, when he writes 2

5:21 Corinthians, he's trying to accomplish several things in writing the letter. So by the time he wrote it, there had been a lot of activity that had taken place. If you've been here for the last seven or eight weeks, you kind of know some of the timeline of that activity. I'm not going to go into the detail of all that again. But suffice it to say that by this time, it seems like, by the time Paul wrote 2 Corinthians, it seems like a majority, seems like a bare majority, but a majority of the church had decided that they were wrong. They had sinned against Paul. They had sinned against the gospel, and a majority of the church, it seems, had repented. They repented of their rejection of Paul. They repented of their abandonment of the gospel, and they at least were reconciled with him. So Paul writes this letter, at least in part, just to rejoice with those people that repented. He rejoices in his restored relationship with them. But the problem was that even if a bare majority were back with him, there was also apparently a sizable minority in the church who were still rejecting Paul and still following the lead of these super apostles.

6:22 So another reason besides rejoicing that Paul writes this letter is just to appeal to that minority one last time to repent and reconcile with him and re-embrace the true gospel. And so once you understand kind of that dynamic, that gives you what you need to understand the structure of the letter. So let me give you the structure of the thing leading all the way up to chapter 12. here it is. This is very high level, very rough. The benefit of it is that it's very simple. In 1 through 7, chapters 1 through 7, Paul is making one last defense of his apostolic ministry. So one by one he's kind of answering the objections of the super apostles and even turning those arguments against him on their head so that they become commendations of Paul and condemnations of the super apostles. That's what he's doing in 1 through 7. And we kind of just marched through that over the course of about five weeks or so. In 8 through 9, chapters 8 through 9, he basically turns and speaks to those, the majority, who are already reconciled to them. And basically asks them to

7:25 give money to this collection that he's taken up for the stricken, famine-stricken church in Jerusalem. So that's 8 and 9. He's talking to those people who are reconciled to him, saying, Here's the next step in your Christian discipleship. Let's take this collection and send it to the famine-stricken church in Jerusalem. In 10 to 13, basically he turns to the other group. That's the section that we're in today. And he engages once again with them, calling them to no longer be estranged from him, but to reconcile with him and re-embrace the gospel.

7:56 So that's 10 to 13. Well, today we're looking at the second half of that last section. We're going to look at chapters 12 and 13 where Paul finishes up what we started last week. This famous foolish boast section of the letter. And then he turns directly to make one last appeal to them. To be unified with one another and return and reconcile with Paul himself. I want to look at this section. I don't want to read the entire thing just yet. We're going to read most of it as we go along. But I do want to just show you the structure of it and how the whole thing is put together.

8:28 So structurally, I think this thing has three sections. It's basically a short section, a long section, and then a tiny section. I think those are literally the three sections of it. They're not very well balanced at all. But you guys make fun of that in me, in my sermons. And so I'm just bringing it up now that Paul does the same thing. So three sections. First of all, you've got 12, 1 to 10, where Paul is talking about his vision that he had of the third heaven. and then this thorn in the flesh that somebody had given to him.

9:02 That's the first section. Starting in verse 11 of chapter 12 and really running all the way down through 1310. So that's the huge section. See it? 1211, all the way down the rest of that page, on to the next page, over to the next column, finally ending in verse 10. This is where Paul is making one last, it's not even really a sort of pleading appeal. This is one last, harder, almost threatening appeal to the last holdouts in Corinth.

9:33 That's what he's doing in that whole long section. I'll show you what he's doing there. Then in the last few verses, chapter 13, 11 through 14, he just brings everything that he's been saying together into one final call for the Corinthians to be reconciled to one another and just heal the rifts and wounds that had opened up between them. That's what he does in the last few verses. Now, this is, once you even understand the structure of it, it's just a fascinating section of Scripture. Mostly because there's so many intriguing questions about that very first section, 12, 1 to 10.

10:07 I mean, you've got Paul being caught up into the third heaven. You've got the thorn in the flesh that followed after that. And that's just, for centuries, it's just been a magnet for curiosity. Because everybody wants to know, what is this vision that he had? And was it even a vision? Paul doesn't even seem to be sure whether it's a vision. What is the thorn in the flesh? And what was the purpose of it? And then there's this very interesting question, where did the thorn ultimately come from? Because Paul says two different things, and he says the thorn has two different purposes. It's fascinating, and people have wondered what that means.

10:39 Then there's also the curiosity that the vision and the thorn are actually not two different stories. They're one story, and Paul is making a very specific point out of that story. He's teaching a lesson. He's not just telling you two things that happened to him in his testimony. He's actually hammering home one last time something that he's been trying to teach through the entire book. You know what that is? What he's trying to hammer home that he's been teaching through the whole book is that his weaknesses and sufferings are not something to be ashamed of.

11:13 In fact, he says, they're not even necessarily something to be escaped. In fact, they are the very marks of his authenticity as an apostle. They mark him out, in fact, as a true follower of the crucified Jesus. You see the logic of that, right? If you're going to be a follower of Jesus, if you're going to be one who puts his or her feet in the footsteps of Jesus, guess what most of those footsteps are going to be? Suffering.

11:45 That's what they're going to be. Peter promises that in his letters. Paul promises it here. If you're going to follow the crucified Jesus, what that's going to mean for you is crucifixion. Take up your cross, Jesus says, and follow me. That's not the gold cross around your neck. It's the cross that killed him, and that will also kill you. So the main idea of this section, it's been the main idea several different times in this book, but it's the main idea here too, is when we are weak, when we are weak and suffering, that's when the power of Christ shines most brilliantly.

12:22 When we are weak, that's when the power of Christ shines most brilliantly. And then here's the twist that Paul puts on it at the end of the book here. And that's when the unity of the church is strongest. When we are weak, that's when the power of Christ shines most brilliantly. And it's when the unity of the church is strongest. So that's where we're headed. Three points to the sermon, one for each of those sections. Number one, this is just 12, 1 through 10, a call to faith. I think that's what Paul is doing there. In the midst of suffering, you should have faith and understand God's purposes.

12:54 So it's a call to faith in 12, 1 to 10. In that big section in the middle, it's a call to repentance. That's what he's saying to the church. You guys need to repent, and if you don't, it's not going to go well for you. So a call to repentance. And then three in those last few verses is this wonderful call to reconciliation. So a call to faith, a call to repentance, and a call to reconciliation. So let's dive into it. Number one, a call to faith. If you remember from last week, ever since chapter 11, verse 21, so you'll have to flip back a page to see what's going on there.

13:28 But ever since 1121, Paul's been engaged in what Christians have come to call the fool's boast. It's just a title that Christians have given to that because Paul says, I'm going to boast, but it's foolish of me to do that, but I'm going to do it anyway. And that starts at 1121. what you get from 1121 all the way through 1210 really is a bitingly ironic section where Paul kind of realizes that one of the ways that the super apostles have convinced the Corinthians to turn on him is by telling them they've actually convinced them that a true apostle of Jesus a true messenger a true sent one of the king of kings and lord of lords Jesus the Christ would not be humble and meek like Paul is.

14:14 They just wouldn't. An ambassador of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords of the universe is not going to be humble and meek like Paul. The true ambassador of Christ is going to be powerful and confident. He's going to have a list of accomplishments that he's done and that God has done through him. He's going to boast of those accomplishments and he's going to try to convince everyone around him that he's great and dignified and worthy of being an apostle of the King of Kings and in fact worthy of being listened to. And Paul doesn't do any of that stuff. He never does any of that kind of boasting and they were nailing him for not doing it.

14:47 Well, Paul realizes that that's one of the ways that the super apostles have convinced the Corinthians to turn on him. And so in this section, he just sort of takes that head on. Now, before he does, if you look at the first 20 verses or sort of 20 and a half verses of chapter 11, You can see that Paul basically spends a big chunk of time there just kind of apologizing for what he's about to do. I mean, he just says it over and over again about a half dozen times. He says, what I'm about to do is so stupid, it's so foolish.

15:18 I'm going to do a little boasting here like you want me to, but I don't want to, and it's not going to do any good. And this is not what the Lord Jesus would do, and this is crazy, but I'm going to do it anyway. He spends like 20 and a half verses doing that kind of throat clearing. But then he says basically, starting in verse 21, okay, you want me to boast, I'll boast. If that's what will convince you that I am a true apostle of Jesus, I care so much about you and your embrace of the gospel that I'm preaching, that if that's what's going to convince you, fine, I'll do it.

15:51 And then starting in 1121, he launches into this section of boasting in which he ends up completely turning everything on its head by not boasting about the things that he's accomplished but about his sufferings and his weaknesses and his point in doing that his point in sort of turning the tables on the super apostles is to say look a follower of Jesus is not marked by how eloquent or impressive or dignified or honorable they are. A follower of Jesus is not marked out by being awe-inspiring or having an amazing resume. No, a follower of Jesus, of course, is marked by the very thing that marked the Jesus that they are following, a willingness to suffer for the good and for the sake of others.

16:51 So that's the point he's making. And at 12.1, where we start today, that fool's boast continues. I mean, you can see that he's still in it because there in verse one, he says he has to keep going. I must continue to boast. And what he means is there's one more thing that I've got to deal with because one of the things the super apostles boast about are the visions and spiritual experiences that they've had throughout their lives. And they tell you these stories over and over again so that you will see them as super spiritual people and you'll recognize them as better apostles than anybody else.

17:25 So he says, I've got to keep boasting. There's one more thing that I've got to boast about. But he sort of, in verse 1, immediately breaks character again to say how silly this whole boasting thing is. See that? I must go on boasting. There is nothing to be gained by it. It's like a little parenthesis there just to show what he's doing here, show the irony. He says, there's nothing to be gained by it, But I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. So, Paul continues playing the game. But he's going to put a shocker of a twist on the end of it.

18:00 But first, let's see how he starts. Look at 12.1. He says, I must go on boasting. Though there's nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. Because those guys boast about that, I'm about to do it too. He says in verse 2, I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know. God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise. Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know. God knows. And he heard many things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.

18:32 On behalf of this man, I will boast. But on my own behalf, I will not boast except of my weaknesses. Though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth. but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. Okay, so that's how he starts it. And there's quite a lot of things to unpack here. So look down at those verses and just let me point out a few things that are really interesting and at some points really instructive. For one thing, I just want you to notice that in these first few verses, one through six, Paul acts as if he's not talking about himself. You see that? I know a man who 14 years ago was caught up, and he even sort of distinguishes himself from that man in verse 5.

19:18 And he says, I'm not going to boast on behalf of myself, but I will boast on behalf of this man. So he talks about this whole thing in the third person. Now, we know that it is Paul, because if you look at verse 7, you can see that he says there, so, you know, therefore, to keep, it kind of breaks right here, me from being too elated by 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 being too elated. So in verse 7, it's really clear that it's him. But even here, as he first lays out the vision, he's so reticent to boast about himself that he'd rather just put the whole thing at arm's length. He'd rather just keep the good stuff, keep the impressive stuff away from him so that people are less tempted to think that he's great because he had the vision. I want you to notice also that apparently, despite the greatness of these revelations, Paul apparently had never told anyone about this experience until now.

20:22 Apparently, he had never told anyone about this experience. Why not? Why not? I mean, we know from the book of Acts that Paul had several of these spiritual experiences, visions, the man in Macedonia, the whole deal, right? He has about a half dozen of them in the book of Acts, and he's not afraid to talk to others about spiritual experiences either. He talks all the time about being confronted by the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. So why had he gone 14 years without telling anybody about this? Well, he doesn't say because he doesn't want to talk about it, but I mean, it just seems to be because this particular experience was for Paul's benefit alone and nobody else's.

21:06 It wasn't meant to be a credential. It wasn't meant to be a medal that he hung around his neck to talk about his own dignity. It was a comfort to Paul himself and not for the benefit of anyone else. John Calvin says it like this. He says, this thing happened for Paul's own sake. For this man had awaiting him troubles hard enough to break a thousand hearts. And he needed to be strengthened in a special way to keep him from giving up and to help him persevere undaunted. I think there's an important lesson in that.

21:40 Because if this kind of thing happened, I think, to any of us, really to anybody in larger evangelicalism, in the publishing and tweeting age that we live in, every single one of us would probably write a book about it and wind up basing an entire television empire on it. wouldn't we because that's what we do we build brands and if god gave us a vision like this and caught us up into the third heaven we would think that that's god's imprimatur on our brand and it would be at the header of our twitter feed every single one of us caught up to the third heaven ministries or whatever not paul though and apparently paul thought this kind of spiritual experience wasn't something to be crowed about, but to be taken as a quiet gift from God for his own benefit. And he certainly didn't use it to burnish up his own credentials, to make himself seem more spiritually impressive or more authoritative. No, when Paul invites the Corinthians

22:41 to judge him, look in verse 6 what he invites them to judge him on. Don't judge me, he says, based on some recounting of some spiritual experience. That's not why I'm telling you this. I want you to judge me, verse 6, on my actions and my teachings. What you can see of me and what you hear from me. That's what he wants to be judged by. Judge me by how I live as a Christian and judge me by how I proclaim the word of God. Only those things. But don't be overawed by things other than that.

23:16 Friends, what awes you in a Christian leader? What awes you? Is it a certain personality? Is it a certain force of authority? Is it a certain way of speaking hard? What awes you? Whatever that is, Paul says, hold that up and make sure that it's worth being awed over. What you ought to judge a Christian teacher by is his life and his words. How he lives and what he says. Okay, so Paul doesn't make a big deal of this vision.

23:50 He wants to keep it at his arm's length. He doesn't want to be judged by it. He doesn't want his credentials burnished by it. But even if Paul doesn't make it a big deal, it is still intensely fascinating, isn't it? I mean, it is just intensely fascinating. So what was it exactly? What is Paul describing here? What was this experience that he had? Well, throughout the last 2,000 years, it's been the subject of intense curiosity. Apparently, Paul never told anybody about it. He never probably mentioned it again other than right here to make this point that I'm going to point out to you here in a minute to the Corinthians.

24:26 But still, it's just a subject of intense curiosity. But the fact is, kind of the sad fact, is that Paul just doesn't tell us a whole lot. What he does tell us is that he was caught up to the third heaven. Now, the third heaven is just the Jewish way of saying the place where God dwells. They had a sort of tri-level cosmology, right? So you had three heavens. Basically, it was a scheme that was sort of inspired by a few verses in the Old Testament where there's earth and then heaven and then the heaven of heavens.

24:58 There's several verses in the Old Testament that speak like that. So the first heaven would have been the heaven of the birds, right? That's the sky. The second heaven would have been the heaven of the stars and the planets. And the third heaven would be the abode of God. He tells us there, clarifies exactly what this is, this third heaven, by calling it in the next verse paradise. And we know from various places in the New Testament that paradise is the place where the risen Jesus is with believers who have already died, right?

25:29 So it's mentioned in the narratives of Jesus' crucifixion when he tells the robber, the thief on the cross, you're going to be with me today in paradise. And it shows up a couple more times in the book of Revelation. So we know what that is. But then the details stop. All we know is that Paul was caught up into the abode of Jesus and believers who already died. And that's all you get. And not even Paul knows whether this was in the body or out of the body.

26:00 In other words, was this a physical thing? Like where his body was snatched up into the third heaven? Was it just a vision or a dream where Paul's body was laying on the bed or sitting in a chair or whatever? and his mind or soul was given a vision of the third heaven, he doesn't know. And he doesn't even tell us anything he saw while he was there. I mean, it's very unlike the book of Revelation in that sense, right? When John had his vision in the Spirit, it's like the whole book of Revelation. And you just get bombarded with images of what John saw when he was in heaven and as the visions came.

26:35 Nothing like that here. He doesn't tell us anything he saw while he was there. just that he heard some things and that he's not allowed to tell us what those are. He just doesn't tell us anything. So with all that lack of detail, why does Paul recount this whole thing in the first place? I think a lot of times, if we're unfamiliar with the Bible, we approach a passage like this and what we think Paul is doing is exactly what he's not doing, which is burnishing his credentials. Look at me. You guys, the Corinthians, need to listen to me because I've been to heaven and you haven't.

27:07 It wouldn't be a bad argument, actually. And yet, that's not the argument Paul is making. The irony here, the biting, wonderful irony of this whole thing is that he's not telling us about this vision in order to impress us. He does everything in his power to prevent us from being impressed, right? From the third person retelling that phrase in six, I don't want you to judge me by visions. I want you to judge me by what you see and hear of me. He doesn't want that. No, the reason he tells us this story about the vision is something entirely different.

27:40 It's just a prologue to what comes in verses 7 to 10. That's all it is. He's got to tell the story of the vision so that he can get to what he really wants to talk about, which is the thorn in the flesh. Okay, so look at verse 7. Let's pick it up. So, he says, To keep me from being too elated by 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 being too elated. Three times I pleaded with the Lord, that's probably Jesus, about this, that it should leave me.

28:15 But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. And therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 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. All right, again, just all kinds of questions about this.

28:45 But before we try to answer some of those, I want you to see the driving logic of this whole thing. I want you to see what Paul is doing and not get lost in the details, right? What he's telling us about this thorn in the flesh is that it had a purpose. And its purpose was so that Christ's power would be known in Paul's weaknesses. In other words, he's just making this point one more time. He's making the point one more time that Christ's power is most known not in boasting about important things, strength, dignity, honor, visions.

29:23 Christ's power is known in weakness. So he's saying there, look, it wasn't the honor and the dignity of being caught up to the third heaven through which I most came to know and love Christ. That's not how I came to know him most. The way I came most to know and love Jesus Christ, he says, was in the weakness of being brought near to death by this thorn. That's how I learned that Christ's power is made perfect in weakness. That's his logic. So let's look at some of the details.

29:55 First, what exactly was this thorn? Like, what actually was it? And the answer is that we really have no idea. Paul doesn't tell us. He doesn't mention it anywhere else in his writings. People have tried to read between the lines here and there. And you might be able to get some way of figuring it out. But so many guesses have been offered that the sheer number of guesses probably tells us that we're never going to be able to nail it down exactly. Some of the guesses have been that the thorn was just intense opposition from his enemies. Other people have guessed that maybe it was a chronic health problem, like bad eyesight.

30:29 You know where they get that from? Bad eyesight. It's because in one of his letters, Paul, at the end of his letter, in order to kind of authenticate himself to the readers, he says, see with what large letters I am writing to you. And people have said, oh, well, that must be because Paul has bad eyesight. That's the extent of the evidence on that. I actually tend to think that at the end of that, he's not writing that because he can't see the letters. He's writing in big letters, like with a marker. Listen to me, right? I think that's probably more.

31:01 So I don't think it was bad eyesight. Some people have said maybe it was a kind of spiritual affliction. Maybe it was some kind of a sin. There's no evidence of that. The best guess, if you read between the lines, and I'm not going to go into all the details of the evidence, but the best guess is that it was probably a recurring sickness that repeatedly brought Paul to the brink of death. I mean, somebody said that even through 2 Corinthians, you can hear the fluttering of the wings of the angel of death. Because more than anywhere else in his writings, Paul seems acutely aware of the fact that it is a probability that he's going to die before Jesus' second coming.

31:37 And in a lot of his letters, he doesn't seem to think that at all. He seems to think he's going to live to the coming of Jesus. Here in 2 Corinthians, it's not like that. He's looked into the face of death, and he's come to realize that there's a distinct possibility, even probability, that I'm going to die. Anyway, I wonder if it's disappointing to you that Paul doesn't tell us what it is. I mean, wouldn't it be cool if Paul just said, here's what the thorn was. It was malta fever.

32:07 You know, I got it here, here, here, and here. or it was malaria or it was this particular sin or I do, in fact, have bad eyesight or bow legs or, you know, as one of the church fathers put it, he had bow legs. Wouldn't it be great if Paul had said that, exactly what it was? I mean, maybe, but I'm not so sure, actually. I mean, imagine if Paul had told us. Then we'd come to a passage like this and we'd read about this thorn in the flesh and we'd think, yeah, that's a great point, Paul, but I don't have bow legs.

32:38 So Christ's power can't be made great in me. I've never had malta fever. I've never had malaria. I don't struggle with that particular sin. So Christ's power is not going to be made great in my weakness just in people who have bow legs or bad eyesight. We find a way to exempt ourselves from it. But now, as it is, because Paul didn't tell us, what's happened is that generation after generation of Christians with all kinds of different thorns have taken enormous comfort and found deep strength in these verses because in one way or another, we can all profoundly relate with it.

33:17 So friend, what's the thorn that you struggle with? What's the thorn that sticks in your flesh every day of your life? What's the thorn that constantly reminds you of your weakness, that reminds you of your mortality, that reminds you of your need for Jesus? And for some of you, it's more than one thorn. I was talking with a dear member of the church out in the hallway just as I was walking in this morning. She was telling me about a struggle in her life.

33:48 And I said, well, that's the text we're looking at today. It's the thorn in the flesh. And she said, well, I've got five or six of them. And I said, yeah, sometimes in your life you look like a pincushion. And she said, a pincushion? Honey, I look like a porcupine. I mean, sometimes we can relate. But whatever it is, however many thorns there happen to be, bring them to these verses. Don't just despise that thorn. Don't despair of that thorn. Learn from it, as Paul did, that Christ's grace is sufficient for you.

34:25 Another question, where did it come from? Where did this thorn in the flesh come from? Look closely at verse 7 there. Let's just read it. To keep me from being too elated by 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 being too elated. So where did the thorn come from? Well, actually, there are two things that you can see in that verse about where it came from. The first one's pretty obvious. It was a messenger of Satan.

34:57 So it came from Satan. A messenger, that's the thorn, from Satan. It came from Satan. Okay, but then look at that phrase, a thorn was given to me. That passive voice in the Bible was given to me. That passive voice is almost 100% of the time used to refer to God. That's the way the Old Testament did it. That's the way Paul learned to do it. And so that, therefore, is the way he writes. It's called the divine passive, in fact. So the thorn was given by God to me. So apparently this thing came from two different places. It came from God and it came from Satan. Now that's strange, but it gets even stranger. So let me ask you another question. For what purpose was this thorn given? Well, again, there are two purposes. You see them? From Satan, it was given to harass him, which is kind of a weak word for being beat about the head

35:59 and the shoulders. It's like a series of repeated slaps or, you know, closed fist strikes to the face, to the head, to the shoulders. That's what harass means and that's why Satan gave it to him. To beat Paul about the head and shoulders with it all the days of his life. But then also you can see that God gave it to him to keep him from getting conceited about the visions. How can both of those things be true? How can this thing be a messenger from Satan to beat Paul about the head and shoulders and also from God to keep him from being conceited?

36:33 This very good spiritual thing. How can both be true? Well, the answer is that this is something that the Bible teaches over and over and over again. That even when Satan thinks he's accomplishing something, God uses that thing to accomplish this his own purposes. I mean, you know the story of Joseph at the end of Genesis, right? The whole thing comes down to the lesson at the very end of that story. You meant that you, the brothers who sold him into slavery, meant this for evil, but God meant it for good.

37:06 And you notice in that, it's not even that God turned it for good. It's not that God has given lemons and he makes lemonade out of it. That's not the point. It's much stronger. You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Same thing in Jesus' crucifixion. In Acts chapter 4, the believers pray and they say, these wicked men, the nations of the world and their leaders are raging against you and they did to you, Jesus, in your crucifixion, they did to you exactly what your father had planned beforehand.

37:44 They meant it for evil. They meant it to get rid of Jesus. God meant it to save his people's souls. And look at how in 7, I love this actually. Look at the beginning of 7. You've got to keep me from being too elated. A messenger of Satan was given to harass. So it's to keep me from being elated, to harass. And then at the end of 7, he returns to God's purposes. To keep me from being too elated. He literally wraps up Satan's purpose in God's purposes.

38:16 To smother it. Brothers and sisters, all of that, all of that is true of you as well. No matter what you're facing, no matter what Satan or hell may be throwing at you right now, you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has his own purposes for that thing. And he's using it to mature you spiritually and to bring glory to Jesus. And we just sang it, right? Though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear.

38:50 Why not? Because God hath willed his truth to triumph through us. Praise God. Here's another thing I want you to notice here about this thorn in these verses. That all that good stuff about the spiritual good that God is doing through the thorn, you know, and wrapping up Satan's promises and smothering them and all of that. I want you to notice that Paul did not immediately grasp that lesson. He did not immediately grasp that lesson. It took him some time to see God's purposes in giving him this thorn.

39:23 Now, how do we know that? How do we know that it took him some time to see that this thorn was actually working for his spiritual good? Because of verse 8. Because he asked God to take the thing away. Now, why would he do that if he was immediately aware of all the spiritual good that this thing was doing to him? If he could see clearly God's purposes in it, he wouldn't have. If he could see everything that he sees here in 2 Corinthians 12, he wouldn't have asked God to take it away.

39:54 So that tells us that at least for a little while, all he could see, all Paul could see in this thorn is that it was hurting him and he wanted it gone. It was only after the Lord said no that he started to see the spiritual benefit of it. Has God ever told you no when you've asked him to end suffering in your life? My guess is he probably has. If you've been a Christian for very long at all, you've asked God to end some suffering in your life.

40:26 And he has said either no or wait a while. Brother, sister, if that's you, if that's the answer you've gotten to God so far about whatever thorn might be in your flesh, that is not a reason to get bitter at him. It's a reason to look deeper. to consider the reasons, the purposes why God might be saying no to bringing you relief. But God is not, he's just not going to make you suffer just for the fun of it. He loves you.

40:56 He wants good for you. He wants you to be perfected in Christ. He wants you to be home with Christ. Ask yourself how your suffering might be contributing in God's plan to that goal. I promise you it is. It's just a matter of seeing if you can see it. Fourth thing, I want you to just notice the bare fact that the Lord told Paul no. I mean, that's instructive in itself, right? Paul prayed, he asked the Lord, that's Jesus, he asked the Lord to take the thorn away, and Jesus said no, even to Paul.

41:32 It helps us understand the reference there to the three times that Paul prayed. You ever wondered why three times? Why didn't you try a fourth time, Paul? I think it's probably mostly a parallel thing that Paul is doing. It's stylistic. Why three? It's probably, I think, a reference to the three times that Jesus prayed in Gethsemane for the cup of wrath to be taken away from him. And what answer did he get from the Father? No.

42:04 No. No. And now that same Jesus lovingly gives that same answer to Paul. No, I have my purposes. Look at the answer he does give in verse 9. Because if there's a high point of this entire letter, if there's one truth that shaped this entire thing and stands as its very heartbeat, it's this in 9. He said to me, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. That's the point that Paul has been hammering home since the very beginning of this letter.

42:37 You can think back over it and think of all the different ways that Paul has made this point. It's why he says that we hold, as Christians, this treasure of the gospel in breakable, cheap jars of clay. So that God's power might be seen in our weakness. It's why he says that the only thing he's going to boast of is his weakness. The only thing I'm going to boast of is my sufferings and all the beatings and shipwrecks that I've had. I'm going to boast about being lowered over the wall of a city in a fruit basket. That's what I'm going to boast about. Weaknesses and sufferings.

43:08 Why does he do that? It's because our weakness, whatever form it takes, ultimately drives us to be more dependent on Christ and therefore Christ is glorified. So I wonder if you can honestly say that. Can you honestly say the same thing Paul does here? That you are quite literally more proud of your weaknesses than you are about the things people are normally proud of. Now, there's a difference between really believing that, like quite literally believing it, and just saying it because you know that's what Paul does.

43:47 I mean, I think you can read 2 Corinthians and see that Paul really believes it. Do you? Well, what would make you be like that? Well, I think what would make you be like that is that you come to the place where you literally don't care. You literally don't care whether you are noted or celebrated so long as Jesus is magnified. Now that takes a whole sea change in your mind. It is counter-human to think in that way.

44:17 But that's why we have regeneration. Our hearts need to be changed. They need to be moved. And friends, you should pray if you're a Christian that the Lord would move your heart in the direction of what Paul is saying here. You should pray that your boast would not be who you are, that your boast would not be what you've done or accomplished, but you should pray that when all is said and done and somebody says, when you're 90 years old and laying on your deathbed, what sums up your life? You should pray that with all your heart, what you will say is not, here's all the stuff I did, but rather, here's what he did for me when I could do nothing.

45:01 Friends, that's faith, and that's what Paul calls the Corinthians to. Here's point number two, a call to repentance. So we're going to run through this one fairly quickly. It's a long section. It's got a lot of detail in it, but we're going to run through it quickly because it's really a very personal thing between Paul and the Corinthians. So by 1211, the foolish boast is over, and Paul makes that clear with that phrase there in 1211. I've been a fool, right? But, of course, then he tells them that they themselves forced him to it.

45:31 I've been a fool. You forced me to it. For you ought to have commended me instead of these super apostles. So, in this section that really runs all the way down through chapter 13, verse 10, Paul turns to making a really sharp call to those in the Corinthian church who are still opposed to it. And the sharp call that he's making is you guys need to repent. You need to repent of your opposition to me. You need to repent of your opposition to the gospel that I'm preaching. Or when I get there on this next visit that I'm about to make, it is not going to go well when I arrive.

46:04 So the whole section is really kind of a parent saying to a child, you need to stop doing what you're doing and do something different or you're going to get what's coming to you. That's really what this whole section is about. Let me run through it and tell you what's going on here. He starts in that first part, 12, 11, all the way through the end of the chapter, by listing out several things that really should have made it clear to the Corinthians that actually he is a true apostle and looking out for their good. So in 12, he mentions signs and wonders. Signs and wonders and miracles always accompanied the preaching of the word by the apostles.

46:36 You see it all over the book of Acts. And Paul is saying, look, guys, the same thing happened with you. I don't know what you can't see. I did miracles among you just like I did the Philippians and the Ephesians. And yet you're discounting that even though those are the signs of a true apostle of Christ. That's 12. 13 to 17, he just goes back to this strange issue in which the Corinthians had actually taken offense to the fact that Paul hadn't asked them for any personal money from them. He asked them for money for Jerusalem, yeah, but he hadn't asked for like personal support from them. Now, Paul had meant that for their good, but the super apostles had taken that good thing that Paul had done and twisted it up and made the Corinthians suspicious that maybe Paul actually is taking their money.

47:18 He's just sort of scraping it off of the collection money that he's taken up. He's a shyster. He's a con man. He's just conning you. It's a ridiculous charge, and Paul's dealt with it several times in this letter already. 19 to 20 are interesting because Paul basically just tells them straight up why he's been doing all of this defending of his apostleship. Look what he says in 19. He says, have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you?

47:50 No, it is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ and all for your up-building, beloved. See, you see what he's saying there? He's kind of turning the tables on him. He's saying, look, I'm not saying all of this stuff so that you will accept me because I need your approval so much. No, no, I know who I am in Christ. I know that my apostleship is true before God. And I know that if the Corinthian church, he says, keeps rejecting me and winds up a scorched ruin, Paul says, I'm going to be fine. It's you guys who are in trouble.

48:22 But he says, no, I've been saying all this stuff that is true before God for your sake, for your good. He doesn't want to come to them and find that all of these sins in verses 20 and 21 are still happening there. Well, fast forward a little bit to 13.1. He comes to this final warning to those who are still set against him and does that kind of in two parts still. First in verses 1 to 4 of 13, he brings this idea of strength through weakness to bear on the situation.

48:53 And it's a little bit complicated argument, but I'll tell you what it is in 1 through 4. He says, look, you think that I'm weak. You think that I am unable to discipline you with any kind of power or authority when I'm with you. That's what you think. That's what you've been convinced of. But you have misunderstood. I might appear to be weak when I am with you, but I am weak only in the sense that Jesus himself was weak when he was hanging on the cross. But guess what came after that? The resurrection in power.

49:26 And if you think I'm weak now, wait until I get there this next time if you don't do what I say, because I'm coming in power just like Jesus came. That's what he does in one through four. Second part of this starts in verse five. Paul does a couple of things in that paragraph. So he calls on them to examine themselves, make sure they're really in the faith. I mean, you can tell from the letter, there were lots of reasons to think that they might not be in the faith. After all, in rejecting Paul, they were also rejecting Paul's gospel. So he tells them in 6 that he hopes they won't continue to do that.

49:58 Don't reject me. I want to pass your test because that will mean that you've accepted me and my gospel. And it will mean that you yourselves are in the faith. Now that's interesting, isn't it? It's interesting that he says that because I think we come to 13.5 a lot of times and we think that that exhortation to examine ourselves is just a kind of subjective, super personal, floating around in the clouds of our own self-doubt kind of thing, asking the question, do I think I'm in the faith?

50:36 But it's not that. According to Paul, in verse 6, there's a definite and concrete test to be applied as to whether you are in the faith. It's not just this swirling cloud of, you know, self-questioning and self-doubt. So what is that concrete test? It's this. Do you accept the teachings of the apostles or do you reject them? That's the test. Examine yourselves, he says. See if you're still in the faith. And how do you do that? You see if I am passing your test.

51:07 are you accepting me or are you rejecting me? And that'll tell you whether you're in the faith or not. I mean, it's so simple, right? And yet, as Christians, I think we pluck this verse out of its context so often, or we even pluck a phrase out, examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith, and we don't even go to the end of the verse. And we make it so complicated. Do I have enough faith? Do I have enough fruit? Is my fruit healthy enough? Is my faith strong enough? Does my faith go deep enough? What percentage of my faith is in Christ? All this swirling self-doubt.

51:40 And Paul is saying, no, don't do that. Go to the bedrock. Do I accept the teachings of the apostles? Do I accept the gospel of Jesus Christ as true? Or do I not? Friend, if you're a Christian who struggles with doubt about your salvation, this idea of going back to the bedrock is so, so helpful. Stop swirling around in abstractions about the strength of your faith or about the depth of your faith or the percentage of your faith or your fruit and whether it's healthy enough and whether there's too much of that or not enough of that.

52:13 Stop it. If you want to silence your doubts, you go to the bedrock. Do I believe that there's a God? Yes, I do. Do I believe that God sent his only son? Yes, I do. Do I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is that son? Yes. Do I believe that Jesus died on the cross? Yes. Do I believe that was more significant than just a natural death? Yes. Do I believe that Jesus was dying for the sins of somebody? Yes, I do. Do I believe that Jesus was dying for me? Yes. Build it up from the bedrock. Don't swirl around in the clouds.

52:45 This is another example of that. Here's the last point. A call to reconciliation. Paul finally brings this letter to a close in 11 to 14. Look at that with me. Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration. comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. What's so wonderful about these last three verses, I think, is that Paul really brings everything that he's been saying for 13 chapters to bear in a simple, undecorated, unadorned, and yet incredibly powerful call to the Corinthian Christians to just lay down their weapons, to be healed of the divisions and the wounds that have been tearing them apart and just be reconciled to one another and live at peace. And he does it with a series of five imperatives. Like in the Greek, they're

53:47 imperatives. Do this, do this, do this, do this. They're commands. But I don't think you're supposed to read these commands as like, you know, demands by a military leader just barking out things to do. No, I think these are more like please. I mean, written, if you can write in a voice, you know that you can. Written in a quiet voice. Calling on the Corinthians to do what we as Christians ought to do naturally. So look at 11, what he says. Here are the commands.

54:19 Rejoice. It's really just a verb form of the word grace. It just says, you know, finally, brothers, grace, you know, whatever that means. Sometimes it's used to say hello, sometimes it's used to say farewell. Here and in other places in Paul's letters, I think it means rejoice, rejoice. Then he says aim for restoration, it's literally be healed. I mean, how do you command somebody to be healed? I mean, isn't healing something that just happens?

54:51 Well, no, of course it's not. I mean, anybody who's had surgery, anybody who's had a wound knows that healing is not something that just happens. It takes work. When there's a wound, if you don't actively do the work, there's no healing. When you have surgery, if you don't actively do the physical therapy, there's no healing. Any wounds that you need to do some work on? Comfort one another. You remember back in chapter 1 when Paul talks so much about the comfort that Paul gives us in our suffering so that we can then give that comfort to others, right?

55:29 That is incredibly important when there are wounds. It's incredibly important to give comfort to those where there are wounds to say, brother, sister, it's going to be okay. Trust the Lord. Comfort one another. Agree with one another. Live at peace. That's what Paul wanted more than anything. This thing had been tearing this church apart for more than a year. He says, agree with one another. Live at peace. Friends, all those things that he says there, they take work, every single one of them. Every one of those commands takes work.

56:00 They're not easy, but they are eternally valuable. The holy kiss there is interesting. Honestly, that really wasn't a thing in Roman culture. And you might think it is because in Italy it is right now, but it really wasn't. You know, you do that thing, right? That wasn't a thing in Roman culture. In Roman culture, you just would never, ever give a kiss to somebody of the opposite sex, for instance, or to someone of a different station or rank. In fact, believe it or not, the idea of kissing like that on the cheek, it seems to have been invented by Christians as an outward show of the love of Christ that was breaking across social barriers.

56:44 So here's the point of that. I mean, it's pretty simple. outward shows of love across social barriers are important. It doesn't have to be a kiss in here. I'm not telling you all to kiss each other. You can if you want to. Remember it's a holy kiss. But it's important that you be a person who's willing to give a hug or a handshake or to meet a need. The love that we have for one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, as members of the same redeemed family of God isn't supposed to be secret or hesitant. It's supposed to be full and enthusiastic and visible. And I hope that marks us as a church.

57:27 Well, he wraps it all up here with 14. We're almost done. Hope that sounds familiar. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Right? I say that almost at the end of every service we have here at 3rd Avenue. Look how that ends. It's Trinitarian, obviously, but look how it all ends. Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. All of you.

57:58 The ones who have repented and the ones who are still punks. The grace and love and fellowship of the triune God be with all of you. Paul blankets this church, wracked with division, torn apart by factions. He blankets them with this prayer that they'd all be covered with the grace and love and fellowship of the triune God. And that's how it ends. So last question, did it work?

58:30 Did Paul's letter to the Corinthians work? Well, yeah, it seems to have worked. Because some months later, Paul wrote the book of Romans from the city of Corinth where he was happily staying for several months. And in Romans 15, verse 26, he tells the Romans that he's about to head off from Corinth to Jerusalem with the collection that the Macedonians and the Corinthians have given. So there it is.

59:05 The Corinthians listened. I pray, friends, that we ourselves will be so responsive to the word of God. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we thank you that it is in our weakness and in our sufferings that you are shown to be powerful. Our God, we pray that you would help us to remember that as we struggle with our own thorns in the flesh, as we struggle with our own thorns in the spirit sometimes.

59:37 Lord, we ask that you would help us not to despise those things, but to learn from them. And to recognize that it's in the darkness that the greatest treasures grow. Because we get to know you as you are. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen.