2nd Corinthians chapter 12 and
verse 1. It is not expedient for me doubtless
to glory. I will come to visions and revelations
of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above
fourteen years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether
out of the body I cannot tell. God knoweth. Such an 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 a man to utter. Of such an 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 seeth me to be, or that he 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 unto 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 in
infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions,
in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I
strong. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Paul has been very honest with
the Corinthians and he's explained a lot more about his personal
experience of the Lord's dealings than he might have desired to
do. He neither wished to tell of
all his sufferings nor was he able to relate all the blessings
that he had received by the visions and revelations of the Lord that
he speaks about. He had been granted these and
they were, in a sense, a very intimate and private matter to
him. He did explain, however, that
having received the many glorious privileges from the Lord, there
was given to him also a thorn in the flesh and a messenger
from Satan, and that was to buffet him. We've been thinking about
that word buffet just in the last week because we were told
in Mark's gospel that the servants of the high priest buffeted the
Lord and slapped him in the face. And that buffeting is basically
a punch. You can think about it as a punch
or as a violent nudge or as an elbowing or something like that.
It was a physical hitting is conveyed by that word buffet. And it happened to the Lord,
and here the Apostle is saying whether physically or metaphorically,
it was his lot also from this messenger from Satan. And the
reason that he gives for this coming, he obviously understood
this and he appreciated that it was so he might not become
too exalted in himself or think of himself more highly than he
ought, having received so many blessings from the Lord. And
I think by that fact in itself, we learn that the Lord allows
trials and temptations to afflict His people in order to help us
to suppress our fleshy pride. Paul asked three times that this
thorn be taken away, but the Lord's answer was to not remove
it, but to assure Paul of sufficient grace to live with his thorn
and to endure the buffeting of Satan's messenger. whatever that
may have involved. The Lord's answer to Paul was,
my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect
in weakness. And today, I want to spend just
a few minutes thinking about that statement by the Lord, because
I'm sure that there's a blessedness here from which we all can take
comfort. knowing that the great apostle
has walked this way before us and proved the Lord to be faithful
and true in this matter. And there's just a few points
that I want to notice and we'll be done. This affliction, here's
my first point then, this affliction was sufficiently severe as to
bring the apostle repeatedly to the Lord for help. Now, we
don't know, as I've mentioned in past weeks, what that affliction
was, this thorn and messenger of Satan, but we do know that
however severe it was, the grace of the Lord was more than able
to uphold the apostle in it and improve the apostle by it. So the point I'm making is this,
the phrase my grace is sufficient, the sufficiency of the grace
of Christ is, thinking about mathematics, more than or equal
to. the need that the apostle had.
And I would say that it was more than the need because we're told
that it had beneficial outcomes. It was given with a purpose that
the apostle might be blessed in the suppression of his fleshy
pride. Therefore, the end and the outcome
was good. Therefore, the grace was more
than sufficient to assist him in his trouble. Paul basically
profited from this affliction. Paul brought his prayer to Christ
because he learned and understood that the Saviour sympathises
with us in our hours of distress, even if He doesn't take it away. And
of course, we've learned some things about the Lord's suffering
as well in past days, how that continued with him over a period
of time. The Lord himself was touched
with the feeling of our infirmities. That's a lovely Bible verse as
well, Hebrews, I think. And the writer to the Hebrews
is telling us there that Jesus sympathises with us, having been
in all points tempted like as we are. There's nothing that
we bear or endure, nothing that we pass through that the Lord
doesn't share in. in our feeling. That's one of
the beauties of this picture, this likeness, this metaphor,
if you like, or type that we have of the Lord's body with
the head and the members. That if one part of the body,
it doesn't matter whether it's the finger or the foot, if one
part of the body feels distress, feels pain, feels irritation,
The head knows about it. The body as a whole suffers. So there's nothing that we're
called to endure that the Lord doesn't share in our feeling. And whether we think of the soul
sufferings of Christ in Gethsemane, having been made sin for us,
tasting guilt, for the first time in his holy spirit and in
his holy disposition, or feeling the hellish reality of being
separated from his Father. The depths of the suffering of
Christ was all-encompassing. He knew mockery and reproach
from the Jews. He knew what it was to have his
hands and feet pierced with nails and his side with a spear. He
knew the jarring trauma of the cross being dropped into its
socket that put all of his bones out of joint. There's not a life
feeling about which our saviour does not have first-hand knowledge
and in which he doesn't sympathise and share with his people. He
knew what it was to be betrayed. He knew what it was to be betrayed
by a friend and denied by a friend and abandoned by his friends. He knew what it was to be ignored
when he spoke and isolated and marginalised. He knew what it
was like to be hungry, to be thirsty, to be grieving, to be
sad, to be lonely, to be weak, to be poor. And often, thinking about ourselves
in the context of these feelings, often we struggle with the uncertainty
about the future. And I wonder just if it's worth
thinking about for a moment, would it be better if there was
no uncertainty and we knew that the worst possible experience
was certain and imminent? You see, actually, because we
don't know what the future holds, there's a blessing in that for
us if we were only wise enough to appreciate it. Christ knew
that the worst possible experience, the experience of separation
from God, the experience of sin in his soul, the experience of
crucifixion, was certain and imminent. It was just a matter
of time. And Christ went through his whole
life anticipating those terrible experiences, knowing that they
were just coming up quickly. And I think that knowing that
the Lord has been through all of these things ought to give
us a degree of comfort in our own troubles, especially when
we remember that he says to his people, my grace is sufficient
for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. And
here's another point that I just want to draw your attention to.
Christ's answer to Paul is an answer to us all. There is a
truth in this life which we all are able to testify to. As we
get older, we can testify to it more and more, and that is
this. Man is born unto trouble. Man is born unto trouble. Scripture says the sparks fly
up. But that's the point. Man is
born into trouble. It will be the portion and the
experience of us all. It's the result of sin. It's
the fruit of the fall. And sin afflicts all men and
women totally. And its consequences bring pain
and suffering to a greater or lesser degree in everyone. And these words of grace were
given to Paul for the immediate circumstances of his trial, that
it was as he came to the Lord with his prayers that the Lord
said to him, Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. And it was
an easing of his mind that was thereby granted to him in that
moment of trial and suffering. And that is an application to
all the Lord's little ones. We all may draw the same comfort
gained by Paul in the moment of extremity. It may be that
for our greater good, hard as it is to understand, the Lord
will not remove the trial that we're enduring or the temptation
that besets us. but he will supply the grace
we need, not only to withstand the buffeting, but to overcome
the messenger of Satan and to learn to live with the thorn
and appreciate the benefits that come from it. So there's a promise
here to all of us. There's a sufficiency of grace
laid up for each one of us in our particular and peculiar and
personal and intimate circumstances. It's there for all of us. However
we need it, wherever we need it, whenever we need it. God's
grace is always sufficient. It's always available. It's always
there to be readily dispensed in the moment of need. And again,
back to this point about worrying about the future, we all do it.
We quote the Lord's Sermon on the Mount concerning not to worry
about the future. We read, and no doubt we take
some sort of immediate comfort from the Lord's admonition, take
no thought for tomorrow, for the moral shall take thought
of the things of itself. And then we quote, sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof. So we're not to worry about tomorrow.
We're not to worry about the things that are lying up ahead. because they'll take care of
themselves and for the day, for the moment, the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ will be sufficient. And yet our flesh is full of
doubt and our faith doesn't handle even these simple tasks without
help from above. So there's a promise here for
us all. Whether it's our present experience, what we're going
through right now today, or whether it's for our anxieties for what
lies ahead, Christ's grace is fit for purpose. It is precisely
designed like a tailored suit. It will fit us exactly. It's purpose built and it is
sufficient. It's not too much and it's not
too little and it will bear us through every trial and temptation
with such an exactness and perfection that we will look back and wonder
that Christ knew us so well and knew our needs so exactly. So
let's just remember this. The Lord always hears and answers
his people. Sooner or later, he will answer
in one form or another. And though that's not always
in the way and manner we desire, yet in such a way as is most
good for us and glorifying to him. And here's just a wee third
point. Paul says, when I am weak, then
am I strong. It seems contradictory, doesn't
it? Even illogical to think, as Paul
thought, and glory in weakness. It seems counterintuitive. to
take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities,
in persecutions, in distresses, as Paul says. And yet, that's
his testimony. That's what he says. And I don't
think we should imply or suggest that he's kidding us on or telling
us lies. So why would he think that? Why
would he take pleasures in these infirmities, reproaches, necessities,
persecutions, and distresses? Well, he tells us, because it
is for Christ's sake. What does he mean by that? Well,
he means that Christ gets greater glory and we get sweeter consolations
because of the sovereignty of Christ's power in us. Because
of the dominion of Christ's rule being seen in his people persevering. and overcoming through their
trials. When we look back over history,
look back over the history of the church and the testimony
of the Lord's people, we see time after time when the Lord's
people were pressed and tried and squeezed and sometimes slain,
when they endured hunger, when they suffered sickness, when
they lost loved ones, When they saw all that they had worked
for stolen and taken by their persecutors, did they give up
and lie down? Did the people of God give up
and lie down? No, they didn't. They proved
that the Lord's grace was sufficient. And they proved that it was sufficient
for them. Those that were slain, well,
they were just promoted to glory immediately. and the remnant
persevered, and still the elect were called to salvation through
the preaching of the gospel. That's the beauty of this little
phrase. In a sense, I feel that when
we speak this phrase, my grace is sufficient for thee, my strength
is made perfect in weakness, we almost by speaking take away
from the simplicity of that little statement. You can forget all
the things that I've said here today, but do lay hold on that
little phrase that the Apostle got from Paul. The grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ transcends any trial, trouble, or temptation
that we can possibly meet with. Grace has redeemed us. Grace
has saved us. Grace has gifted to us eternal
life. joy, rest, satisfaction, fulfilment,
and every imaginable blessing. Grace brought God to this world
in the person of Jesus Christ. Grace found a way to deliver
men and women from righteous condemnation and punishment for
sins. and to give us the blessings
of eternal life in Christ. That was grace that did that.
You know, men and women, they speak casually of the troubles
of their lives, and they say, oh, this is just like hell, oh,
it's hellish today, or some phrase like that, that their days are
hell on earth. They've no idea what they're
talking about, they've no idea what they're saying, or indeed
what they're comparing. and we have escaped hell. We have been freed from everlasting
separation from God and all the suffering and all the anguish
of soul that that entails. And even yet there's more because
grace joined us to Christ. Grace made us his body, his bride,
his kingdom, his eternal delight. John Newton was a man who, like
Paul, knew much of sin and degradation. And yet he, like Paul, was able
to speak better than some others about the experience of grace. And he wrote, through many dangers,
toils and snares, I have already come. It is grace that brought
me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. Amen. you.