This Thing.

2 Corinthians chapter 12, and I'd like to read the first eight verses of this chapter for our text and Bible study. It is not expedient for me, the Apostle Paul says, doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above 14 years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell or whether out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth. Such and one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth. How that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for man to utter. Of such and one will I glory, yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool. For I will say the truth, but now I forbear, lest any man should

think of me above that which he seeeth me to be, or that heareth of me. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh. The messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me, and he said to me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure, Christ's sake, when I am weak. This passage of Scripture takes my breath away, and sometimes I read it, and I wonder how in the world say anything in addition to that. But I would like to teach from this passage of Scripture. In particular, I want to draw your attention to Paul's request in verse 8. For

this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me, and I'd like to teach on this thing. Heavenly Father, thank you for this evening and this gift of a congregation, the gift of your word. I pray that you would bless our time together. I pray that you would help me to teach faithfully. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you for standing, be seated. Let the perhaps the most adventurous life of anyone aside from Christ in both testaments, in some ways, his only rival in terms of color, color of character. It's in the Old Testament, it's probably Jacob. In this letter, the apostle Paul is trying to defend himself in a way from accusations of various natures. Earlier in the letter he had to defend himself against accusations of malfeasance, misuse of funds. He had to defend himself against charges that he was fickle, that he would say one thing, but do another. And among other accusations, he also has

to defend himself against the idea that perhaps he's not a suitable teacher and preacher, or he is far from the ideal minister of the gospel in comparison to other preachers and teachers in the church. Now it's very difficult for us, 20 centuries later, to come to terms with that idea. The apostle Paul towers above most other names in the ancient world. The men that Paul was being compared to, their names have been dropped out of history. We don't know them. We know Paul. So it's a little bit difficult for us to make this mental adjustment, but at the time he did not rate highly in the eyes of many, and particularly the Corinthian church. The Corinthian church has received ministers, preachers, traveling preachers, traveling, they're called, I think Paul's being sarcastic when he uses the term, super apostles. The S on their chest sort of, you can imagine them. He literally calls them super apostles, and I think it's tongue in cheek. These

are men who claim to have seen visions of the afterlife, visions of glory, visions of heaven. They claim to have seen Christ himself seated upon the throne, and they use that revelation, that vision as the basis for the authenticity and legitimacy of their ministry. That's their platform. So that's what they build on. They receive credibility, and the congregation gives them credibility because they have spoken of compelling and persuasive visions of heaven. And they've noticed that Corinthian church has that, well, whenever he comes, whenever this super apostle comes, the place is packed, everyone tells their neighbors, come, listen to this, word of mouth advertisement, all kinds of buzz. Whatever social media was available to the first century Christian, they were using it whenever the super apostle would come. I'm sort of reminded of something my dad did once as a pastor. He's a little bit worried about sagging attendance numbers, and he just got an idea. He's going to put out on the reader

board, Prophecy Conference Book of Revelation. Oh man, the place filled up. It was full, and the strangest folks you've ever seen too. It was full. The church was full. Well, whenever the apostle Paul would come, folks might stay home. Folks might stay home. There is such a thing as being too good of a preacher. There is such a thing. Because you might, might, you might prick the conscience. You might mess some things up. Paul seemed to be that kind of guy. Moreover, moreover, he was extremely unimpressive in person. Not only that, and I'll get into that in just a moment, but the apostle Paul, the focal point of his ministry, was not to stand in front of people and speak of the visions he had of heaven. He did not use visions of heaven as the basis of his credibility as an apostle or preacher. He didn't expect you to listen to him because he had ascended into the heights. The basis of

his ministry was one thing. I wanted to know nothing among you, but Christ and him crucified. So in contrast to the super apostles, the apostle Paul is placing before the congregation a vision not of Jesus sitting upon the throne in heaven in power and glory, but Jesus sitting upon his throne on the cross bleeding and dying, and this was repulsive to the ancient mind. So Paul keeps on preaching on the cross. He keeps teaching on the cross. Everything centers around the cross for him. People must have gotten fed up with it and then to breath a fresh air when somebody else comes in and preaches these visions. So here's what Paul does in the passage of Scripture that we have just read as our text. He says in chapter 11, he has gone through a catalogue of his bloopers in life. Where you would expect somebody to try to create or come up with a resume that equals the super apostle. Well, here's

what I did. Here's what I did. I ascended to the fourth heaven, the fifth heaven, whatever, higher and higher and higher. That's not what Paul did. In chapter 11, he goes through all of the things in his ministry that you could take as a criticism of him. He was beaten by his own brothers. You might say, well, he's sort of going over all of the wounds that he has. And these are badges of honor for him. In a way, yes, but in a way, no. In a way, no. He's trying to list all of the reasons, all of the things that have kept him from being elevated in pride, being shipwrecked all of those times. There's the question when you see somebody shipwrecked that many times, whether God is indeed with them. Or this isn't a message. Maybe you shouldn't be doing this. At one point, he even gives the story of early on in his ministry of himself being lowered over a

wall in a basket. Well, that is a really interesting anecdote, because in the Roman world, the highest medal of honor that you can receive as a soldier is called the Coronas Morales. And the Coronas Morales, it has an impress on one side. And it's essentially like the Victorian Cross in England, the badge of honor here in the United States of America. It's the highest honor you can receive in the military. And the impress is of a soldier climbing over the wall into an enemy's city. That's the depiction. You see a soldier with one leg outside the city wall and one leg over into the city's wall. And clearly, the soldier is climbing into enemy territory. Why did they rate this the highest honor for a soldier? Well, very few, very, very few men lived to tell of being the first man over the wall. Usually, if you're the first man over the wall, you're the sacrificial lamb. You're drawing some attention so that

somebody else can come up over on the other side. You die. So those that survived, they wore that for the rest of their life and received a state pension. They were elevated wherever they went. They would wear a crown, a laurel wreath to signify their great bravery and courage, their Roman courage. First one over the wall, into enemy territory. Well, Paul tells a story about himself being lowered over the wall, but not into the enemy's city, but out of the enemy's city. It's the reverse Coronas Morales. Again, it's the blooper reel, which is a really funny way of allowing yourself to be compared to people who seem to be rated more highly. But that's Paul. He's a really, he's a really curious fellow. No one really like him. Outside of Jesus, there's no one I want to meet more in heaven and spend more time with than Paul. I just, I can't get over how remarkably fortunate we are as Christians to have

such a figure in our history. What a heritage we've been given. What a gift the apostle Paul was. This in a thousand other ways. But let me go on. Let me go on. And then he develops this really, really curious rhetorical strategy here in chapter 12. He's like, he takes a couple attempts at bragging about himself. And then each time he keeps on backing off in chapter 11 and falling back into, oh, I'm sounding like a fool. Do you guys not hear this? It's what he's saying. He's saying, when I start bragging about myself, doesn't that make you think I'm ridiculous? Obviously it doesn't because that's what the super apostle does. He brags about himself and brags about himself and you lap it up. I can hardly stand myself. I got almost have to take a bath every time the apostle Paul is saying, every time I start bragging about myself. And then chapter 12, he launches full fledged, well almost full fledged

into an attempt, an attempt to brag about an accomplishment. And so he says, it's not expedient for me, doubtless to glory. In other words, this is not the way I want to minister. This is not what's best for the gospel. I'll come to visions and revelations of the Lord. All right, at last I'll do it. All right, you force me into it. Revelations, visions. I knew a man above 14 years ago. He can't bring himself to do it. So he starts talking about himself in the third person. He can't say I was caught up 14 years ago. He develops his strategy of speaking himself in the third person. I knew such a man 14 years ago, whether in the body or out of the body, I can't tell. Caught up to the third heaven. But here's the thing. Watch what he says. He was caught up in the paradise and he heard unspeakable words. Words which it's not lawful to utter. Ooh, boom.

That's what the super apostle does. He's constantly speaking of these things that are really too holy to utter. In the very act of speaking them, of conceptualizing them, you're bringing them down to earthly things. In contrast, this man, he says, won't speak of such things. And if you have any sense, he's essentially suggesting you wouldn't either. And anyone who does, you probably shouldn't listen to. Of such a one, will I glory? Yet of myself, I will not glory. But then he says, I will glory in one thing though, in my infirmities. That which you consider to be a strike against me, I consider to be that which gives me grace. He goes on to say, I had this thorn in the flesh. And it was sent by the messenger of Satan. Now literally that word for messenger in Greek, in Paul's Greek, is the word angelos, which we would normally translate angel. It literally reads an angel of Satan was sent to punch

me repeatedly. And the surprising thing about this whole story is, he's saying that this was the will of God. Who's in control here? It's Satan doing this to me by dispatching one of his fallen angels to beat me up. But it is done so that I will not glory in the kinds of things that the super apostles glory in. And therefore become useless. Because again, God gives grace to the humble. He resists the proud. He doesn't want to become the kind of Christian who has done great things for God and then gets later on in life. And gets lifted up and elevated and proud in pride and is no longer useful to the body. And so the enemy plays a role in ensuring that the apostle Paul stays useful. That's quite a statement. All right, so this thing was sent to buffet me. What form did it take? We have been trying for a long, long time to discover on earth the identity

of the thorn in the flesh. What is it? And lots and lots of theories are out there. Some say, well, he had what appears to be glaucoma later on in life. He seems almost to have been blind. And one of the ways we might know that is that at the end of the book of Galatians, Paul says, you see what large a letter I'm writing in. Now he's not referring to the length of the letter of Galatians because it's actually one of his shorter epistles. It's not nearly as long as 1st or 2nd Corinthians or Romans. It's short. He's talking about the size of the characters he's drawing on the page. Because Paul usually had a secretary that he could dictate to. Most of his letters are him speaking and one of his secretaries taking down what he's saying and then they put a stamp on it, put a seal on it and send it out to the church. But in Galatians, for

whatever reason, he had been abandoned by everybody and there was nobody there to take down his dictation. So he had to take up the manuscript, the letter himself and write himself, which means he was probably doing by candlelight and he's putting the letter right close to his, right next to his face, probably just a couple inches away from his nose and he's having to draw so large that he himself can see what he's writing. So he had been stoned, you know. You get a couple shots of rocks to the head. You might have some vision problems later on. Well, that's possible. Others have tried to theorize, well, maybe he had a, maybe there was some kind of temptation in the form of lust, that sort of thing. All of that is just, that's like taking something foreign to the text and putting it in. That's like projecting onto the text your own issues. It is evident if you read Paul carefully, he has

just talked about in the previous chapter all of those people who continuously hound him and try to undo everything he does for the Lord. And you see this dramatized in the book of Acts. He'll go into one city, revival will start and the next thing you know, some of his fellow countrymen who hate him are going to the Roman officials and trying to get him in trouble for stirring up people. And so he ends up having to be exiled from the city or jailed everywhere he goes. A great work is happening and then it seems to be crumbling because of what are called the Judaizers that come in behind him and say, Paul's not really an apostle, he is a fake. He's not preaching the true gospel, the gospel that is taught in Jerusalem. He's teaching a foreign gospel, a gospel that says you can do anything you want because you've been saved by grace. And so people are constantly, constantly wondering about

him. You know, they at first embrace him and then later on when the Judaizers come along, they're like, hmm. And then a super apostle comes along and says, this is how it's done. Well, the thorn in the flesh, good chance given what he has just written in chapter 11. He's talking about these critics seems pretty obvious. He just didn't want to name them. And here's where I'm going. What seemed to be to Paul's disadvantage ended up being Paul's great advantage. The thorn in the flesh, the operation and activity of the enemy, which attempted to stop him at every turn, was the one thing that made sure he was always useful to God. In other words, he had a limitation imposed upon him. The apostle Paul was an extremely powerful man, but I want to paint a slightly different picture for you. He was born in what is today Turkey. He was part of a Jewish synagogue in exile from Jerusalem. His native tongue

was not Hebrew, not even Aramaic. His native tongue was Greek. He was born with the name Saul, Saul, which means in Hebrew, great one, great one. This is the name that he had. It seems even on into early on in his Christian journey, Saul, great one. But now Saul in the Old Testament is a terrific character to read about. He's marvelous really. What a tragedy. But he's head and shoulders above everybody. He's so tall, you can pick him out of a crowd. He's known for his height. That's the supreme thing he's known for early on. But when you watch young Saul, who's head and shoulders above everybody, he's very humble. He doesn't think that he is worthy of being a king. And while he's humble, he does great things for the Lord. While he's little, God says in his own eyes, he's powerful. And I want you to remember that word little. When he's little in his own eyes, he's mighty in the

Lord. But later on, he starts getting lifted up in himself. And at one point he calls on David because he's being afflicted by demonic spirits who are coming and depressing him. These have been dispatched by the kingdom of heaven to afflict Saul into repentance. And sure enough, he does the right thing. He calls upon the sweet psalmist of Israel, young David to come and sing songs about the Lord. And all of a sudden, all the cloud lives. But then later on, he gets so proud later on that when David comes after having slain the giant, his whole disposition has changed towards David. You see, he's heard and seen something. He saw David do something that he was supposed to do, slay the giant. And so all of Israel is singing a song now. The song goes something like this. Saul has slain his thousands. Oh, that song sounds good to me. I can imagine Saul listening to it outside his chariot. Man, I

like that first verse. What's the second verse say? But David has slain his 10,000s head and shoulders above everybody. And all of a sudden, the evil spirits, the messengers of Satan come and buffet him, trying to bring him back to repentance. But what does he do? He hears David over there playing that music that once comforted him. And he picks up the spear this time and hurls at it, David. And I can see David in my mind's eye fleeing just in the nick of time in the javelin, clanging against the wall. Well, Saul was the king of Israel, but he came from the smallest tribe, the tribe of Benjamin. The tribe of Benjamin was once the mightiest tribe in all of Israel. In the book of Judges, they took on all 11 tribes in Civil War and nearly one. They were mighty men. The name Benjamin itself means son of my right hand. But we find out something's wrong with the tribe of

Benjamin in the book of Judges because most of the warriors are all left-handed. It's a really strange thing. But they're powerful. They're expert at war. And then Civil War, because of a crime that they did not punish. Civil War decimates the Benjamin tribe and they have to borrow women from the other tribes in order to repopulate themselves. And so when we turn over to 1 Samuel, right over to the next page is we find out that... We're going to find out that somebody from the tribe, the smallest tribe of Israel now, Benjamin, is going to be the king of Israel. And Saul, when he first hears about himself being a king, he's like, I come from the smallest clan of the smallest tribe. How could you possibly think? But later on, he's a very, very different man. All right. So Saul has this reputation of someone being tall and powerful. And so I can just imagine the parents of the apostle Paul. A

thousand years later, and name him Saul, which in Hebrew you would pronounce Shaul. They didn't really speak Hebrew all that much, but they kept the Hebrew names, even though they spoke mostly Greek. So they called him Shaul, mighty or great one. He's supposed to be tall, but the apostle Paul was not tall. And at least it's unlikely that he was. It's about a 95% chance. Here's why I say that. Whenever Saul went into minister in Gentile Greek speaking lands, the name Shaul, if you're speaking Greek, it means an effeminate man. So in Hebrew, it means mighty one, but that same sound in Greek means effeminate. And so he needed to go by another name, another name that had a similar sound to it, Paul or Paulus. Well, what's this name mean? Does it mean mighty one, great one? No, it means tiny one. It means little one, tiny Tim, his nickname. It's a nickname that other people gave him. And what they were

saying when they said Paul, it was a nickname, sort of an affectionate insult. It meant tiny. Hey, tiny! When are you going to preach? According to the Christian tradition, he was not much over four feet tall. He was just a little guy. He was mighty in the scriptures, but he didn't seem to have much of an impressive presence. So people always commented on his writing, and they would say, when you write and we read your letters, we think, what a powerful man of God. And then he shows up. It's like the Wizard of Oz walking out from behind the screen. And here's this little guy. They were expecting a trumpet, like the one that Michael plays, Archangel Michael. But when they actually heard his voice, it was like listening to a kazoo. They said, boy, you're awfully impressive in your letters, but in person, my goodness. Just give us some of your letters. So the parents want him to be the great one,

possibly tall, named after the tallest man in Israel. He ends up with a more fitting name, tiny. And it's so interesting to me that you can't find a single letter in all of the letters that Paul wrote in the New Testament, the 13 letters that he wrote. Not one time does he say, Saul, an apostle of Christ. But he always acknowledged and received and embraced the little guy. Well, he's extraordinary as a man, though. He is capable of speaking Hebrew. He's capable of speaking Aramaic. He has his native tongue Greek, and he also speaks Latin. He's fluent in at least four languages. He's also fluent in culture. So when he goes to Jerusalem to stand in the Sanhedrin before the great Hebrew elders, the doctors of law, he's so powerful of an intellect that he knows how to turn the two portions, the two different parties of the Sanhedrin against each other. All right? So he's doing this in Hebrew. And then he

can go across the Mediterranean up into Greece, and he can go to the philosophical center of the world where Socrates and Plato and Aristotle once lived. He can go to Mars Hill, the Areopagus, where all the philosophers congregate, and there completely stun them too in Greek. And then he can get on a boat with the Roman captain Julian. And it's not long before Julian, the great Roman captain who is holding Paul prisoner, Julian turns to Paul for directions. Wherever Paul goes, people end up looking to him, no matter where he's at. He's this great, almost Swiss army knife in the pocket of God. He's just extraordinary. And yet he calls himself tiny. And what I'm saying to you where I'm going is your limitation, like the limitation that the Apostle Paul had. First of all, he's not an impressive person, in person. Second of all, he has tons of critics. Third of all, he has a message that tends to turn some people

off. The Apostle Paul knew, though, that often the limitations that were imposed upon him were limitations imposed by none other than God. And that those were meant not as punishment, not to keep you from doing great things, but to ensure that great things would be done through your life. The thorn in the flesh is one of God's greatest gifts to you other than the gift of the Holy Ghost. That whatever it is that keeps you humble is your great gift. I don't know what that is for you. I know for me. I know for me. When I was in high school, I told you on Sunday, I wanted to be a pilot. I also wanted to be a baseball player, major league baseball player. I wanted all these visions of grandeur. The problem was, when I was a sophomore in high school, I was only five feet tall and I only weighed about 105 pounds. I had this great big cowlick in the

back of my head. I still do. If my hair grows out any length at all, it just does its own thing. And, you know, kids are really self-conscious, oftentimes miserable. Now, I grew quite a bit in my senior year, and I could pick up a baseball and I could throw it 90 miles an hour. Didn't have a clue where it was going, though. Scared the catchers to death, because I might hit their mitt or I might hit the dirt 50 feet in front of them. As I look back upon my life, I look back at that and I see I wanted so bad to be a major league pitcher. And I had the capabilities to do it. Maybe, maybe minor leagues, something. But you know what that life would have involved for me? How much church would I have missed? How many senior and junior camps would I have missed? How many revivals would I have been unable to attend? My circle of

friends would have been different. I would have been, I would have been seeking the popularity and the approval of these other athletes. My Friday nights would have been very different. They probably would have eventually involved partying, road trips. And then maybe if my dream had come true and I was in the minor leagues, what kind of family life could I have? I wouldn't have the three children that I have or the two grandchildren that I have or the many happy memories that I now possess and cherish. I certainly wouldn't be talking to you about scripture tonight. Instead, I would be a broken down 46 year old man, cast aside by the system because I no longer had the arm. I might have a million dollars in the bank, but what would I have at home? I would be a name that flashed in the lights for a few moments, an eternity like a shooting star and then completely forgotten. And the rest of

my life as I dwindled, as my body and my youth left me, abandoned me, nothing to comfort and no hope. I wanted so bad to be able to stand on the mound and look at the catcher's mitt in just one time. But there was a thorn in the flesh, thanks be to God. I didn't stop, I told you on Sunday, I didn't stop being a little boy when that dream died into the ministry. And I was going to try and transfer all of those desires from the baseball field that were not going to come true into the pulpit. I was going to be superstar preacher. And my goal was to preach like my uncle. And my uncle, it wasn't five minutes into a sermon, he'd be standing on top of the pulpit, on top of it. And then he had this little thing where he would run on the backs of the pews, all the way to the back, and he could stand

there balanced on the back of one pew. He'd put his microphone down in the face of one of the poor saints and say, what does Hebrew 111 say? Now faith is a substance, louder! Now faith is a substance, louder! And we go back and forth, back and forth. He was mesmerizing, he was entertaining, he was magnetic, he was inspiring. He was loud. I'm telling you, if he had been on TV, if he had been on TV, I don't care if it's a Super Bowl playing and then Star Wars on another channel, I don't care what's on there, and you have the old TV dials where you switch through. When the TV station hits that man, it's going to stop, right there. It's a train wreck, and it's glorious all at once. He's unbelievable. And by the end of it, he'd just go on this winding journey and you have no idea where he's going, and then all of a sudden, boom! You're staggering

around. Marvelous. I thought, that's my model. I remember my first sermon. My first sermon didn't turn out the way I thought it would. No, it didn't. For some reason, well, we had two services Sunday, and Sunday morning, Pastor preached, and he said, I want you to preach Sunday night, Mother's Day. Okay, nobody will be there. He didn't say that, but I know that's what he was thinking. And I remember being in an office, I went and borrowed somebody's office, and I sat down and I wrote down a sermon, and I had plans. Probably right about here is when I get on top of the pulpit. Had it written in, you know, planned, now it's time to march on the enemy. Now it's time to make some people uncomfortable. Get out there and be condescending. Well, I'm up there preaching, and it's Mother's Day. There aren't very many people there, but I'll tell you what is there, what the few that are there, there's

one mother who's lost her child in the last year. Didn't think about that at all. And I'm talking about stuff I have no business talking about. And I'm trying to get everybody's emotions going and trying to be my uncle. I tried to raise my voice. You know, preaching is great, and volume is great. Everybody has their own kind of ministry. Everybody has their own kind of thing. But it's not mine. I don't even have the voice for it. I tried. My voice, I sprained my voice, like the first 15 seconds. Just went, ergh! And I was done. But I had visions. And I'm going, I'm going to, in the spirit of Paul, I'm going to make myself a fool. I'm going to tell you, my idea was I was going to be preaching at conferences and camps and conventions. I was going to, I was going to have pastor, this mega church. You don't want to be too hard on young guys that

have those kinds of dreams, because sometimes God can use ambition too. But nevertheless, I had the idea that I was getting into the pastoral ministry and that when I preached, people would listen. I don't know where I got that idea from. But you know what I found out? I found out a lot of people do listen, but a lot of times I end up in a discussion with a saint and it's obvious that they hadn't heard or bothered to apply anything that I'd been teaching from Scripture. And this was a repeated thing. I thought that when the preacher spoke, that's what you were supposed to do. That's the way I thought. But then when I preached or I taught, no, no. I'm getting calls at two, three o'clock in the morning and I'm sitting down and doing counseling, trying to get this couple back together on the same page. And then a week later, they're calling me about the same problems. I thought

we worked all that out. I thought I got over here. I got out of bed and I came over here to try to help you guys. And here we are again. What in the world is going on? And I found out everything I tried to do was crumbling in my hands. In fact, I was making things worse. And all the visions and all the dreams that I had as a young minister, not one of them, I couldn't preach like my uncle. People were bored teaching a teacher on older Pentecost. That's the position that we gave to the guy who can't preach. None of it's working out. Nope. And then in our fairly new church plant, we only have about 75 congregants or so, there is a family that is highly displeased with me. And it all goes back to that first sermon because she, the mother of the family, is the one that lost a child. And they carried anger and they criticized

me at every turn. They would talk to people behind my back. I would see people's attitude towards me change. I would see myself, I would lose friendships and affection. I could see it in their faces when new people would come in. Maybe I'd be the one to give them the Bible studies. It seemed like they would turn these new people against me. And I remember, I went to a very wise man. His name is Rick Stoops. He's a district superintendent of Maine, a former district superintendent. And I was talking to him about this. And I said, then let's call this family Bob. He said, here's the problem. We can't seem to get ahead. I can't seem to get anything built. I can't seem to build camaraderie and fellowship. And I had gotten over all of those ideas of conferences and all that stuff. And I didn't care about that stuff anymore. I just wanted a good church and fellowship. I don't know how

to deal with this. And you know what he said, he said, he said, I'll never forget it. He said something like this. He said, Jeremy, Jeremy, you do not understand the nature of the ministry. I want you to know something that if that Bob goes away and you think now your problems are solved and now your church can grow. If God loves you, he'll bring another Bob. There's an infinite number of Bob's. And you need a Bob. And your Bob is there to help you three times. Take this thorn from my flesh. And each time he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. For when you're weak, I'm strong. The idea is, the idea is, is the thorn in the flesh? This thing that he's talking about is the channel through which God allows his grace to flow in your life. It doesn't come from successes. It doesn't come from achievements. It doesn't come from admiration. It comes from that which

feels like it's going to kill you. And it's the one thing that you feel like you need out of your life in order for your life to move on. That's my grace. That's my grace. And this life is all about limitations. The ministry is all about limitations. The Christian life is all about limitations. Limitations are that which, that which allow you to grow. If you have a body of water and there are no banks, the water just kind of spreads out and stagnates. But you bring in banks, bring it in real close, create limitations and suddenly you have a mighty forceful river. When you don't have foul lines in baseball, you don't have baseball. When you don't have rules, limitations in basketball, there's no game. In poetry, think of Shakespeare. Shakespeare for just a moment. Remember Hamlet says something like, as he's holding up, he's holding up a handful of dirt and contemplating life and he says, Imperius Caesar. This is the dirt

of Caesar's body. Imperius Caesar dead in turn to clay. There's the word clay right there. Which means the next line has to rhyme with that. So he's reduced almost an infinite number of words that he could use down to just about ten that will rhyme with that. And only about three of them will make sense. What are you doing? Why are you limiting what the next line can say? Imperius Caesar dead in turn to clay. Might stop a hole and keep the wind away. Music. The instant that rhyme comes in, there's music. It was created by limitation. When we stopped putting all the power in one man's hand in a monarchy and spread it out and we put checks and balances, there was born the United States of America, the greatest nation there has ever been. Limitations, limitations are grace. So there are several letters that Paul wrote. We call them prison letters because he wrote them when he was in prison and

he's so upset because the church, which is a thousand miles away that he planted is going off the deep end. He needs to be there in person. If I can be there, I can fix this. But he looks at the prison bars, the shackles on his hands. What am I going to do? I can't fix this. When the church that you love is going down the tubes, everything you've poured yourself into is wasting away. There's no loss like that and I can't get there. And I'm in prison and he might have said, God, why am I in prison? I could fix this if I were present. He's confined to a prison cell and so what does he do? He writes a letter and thanks be to God that he was forced to write letters because he wrote them when he couldn't be there in person. And because of that limitation, he gifted the rest of eternity, the letters that had been preserved and

have kept the church and have been a gift to every generation. We might have thought it was a disadvantage, but it was to the great glory of the church. 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul says, I am the least of the apostles and I'm not need to even be called an apostle. Why? Because I persecuted the church of God and then listen to this. By the grace of God, I am what I am. So he starts out and he writes 1 Corinthians earlier on in his ministry. He says, I'm not the greatest apostle. I'm the least. That's a pretty high calling right there. It's a very select group. I'm the least of them, but it's a select group. About eight years later, he wrote to a church in Ephesus, if you've heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given to me, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body whereof I was made minister, according

to the gift of the grace of God. The least is this grace given that I might preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. He goes from the least of the apostles and somewhere along the way, he said the least that have ever lived. Last year of his life, in one of his last letters he wrote, he wrote to his dear son in the Gospel, Timothy, and he said these words. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Christ died for sinners. It took a lifetime. He was born as great one. Then he wanted to be called tiny. And then he rated himself as the least of the apostles. And then he rated himself later on as the least of the saints. When he gets to the very end of his life, he knows, no, that's not low enough, not nearly. Of all the sinners that have ever lived from Adam and Eve on to this very day, I am the chief

of all sinners. Not I was. I am. But by the grace of God, I preach this Gospel, a trophy of God's grace. And then, when he has reached his lowest point in his own estimation, each time he goes lower in his estimation, the higher God is in his view. The praise gets more glorious. And at this last moment of his life, he says these words that have never been matched in literature in praise and honor to God, now to the King eternal and mortal invisible, the only God, be all the praise and glory and honor for ever and ever, ever. Amen. Let that be me as I get older. May I know you more. The marvel of your whatever limitations you have imposed upon me. Remove them. I pray not one more time for them to be removed, but no. Through them, give me grace. For all I need is your grace. That's it. It's sufficient. And so your face with a choice,

your strength, which would you have? Before you go home tonight, I think it would be fitting. If you would come to the front, and when you do, I want you to thank God for something you've never thanked God for, is whatever your thorn in the flesh is. My job here tonight, I just wanted to do one thing for you to recognize the God, the grace of God that is operational in your life. So many of us were blind. We see it as our enemy. So would you come to the altar? I want you to thank the Lord for his grace.