verse 7 verse 10 scripture says 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. But 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. Therefore, I take pleasure in
infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions,
in distresses for Christ's sake. When I am weak, then am I strong. The title of the message this
morning is The All-Sufficient Grace of Christ. all sufficient grace of Christ. This morning I want to bring
this message to you concerning Paul's thorn in the flesh. Paul's thorn in the flesh. And how this relates to us as
believers in Christ. And then I want to see the answer
that the Lord gives the Apostle Paul. And then we're going to
look at the response of faith. The response of faith to His
answer. And so that's how I want to divide
the message this morning into these three divisions. So first
of all, the purpose of the thorn. What was the purpose of this?
Why did God send this thorn in the flesh to the Apostle Paul? Second, I want to see the answer. The answer. of Christ to this
thorn, as to the purpose, as to why he gave this thorn. And thirdly, I want us to see
the response of Paul, which is the true response of faith, true
response of the believer, in answer to Christ, in the answer
of Christ. So first of all, here is the
purpose of the thorn. But in this passage of Scripture, the
Apostle Paul greatly describes a blessing. He was given a great
blessing. He was exalted into heaven. He was allowed to enter into
the presence of glory and to hear things in heaven. Can you
imagine? Well, we can only imagine. We
have no idea what these things are. He wasn't permitted to write
them. What a privilege! What a revelation
that the Apostle here is explaining. But yet, truly, was not the Apostle
blessed even above this in what he was given as far as understanding
the Scriptures? Understanding the Word of God. He was greatly blessed. He was
given such grace to be an Apostle as one born out of due season.
He realized that he was the only apostle that did not walk with
the Lord Jesus Christ while he was in the earthly ministry.
He actually came to him after his death and resurrection. There's
a blessing, a great blessing given to him. He who once was
a blasphemer, a hater of God, a persecutor of the church, yet
God saved him. One of my favorite messages is
surprised by grace. You don't suppose that was surprising?
Nobody ever thought that Paul would be one? He was a hater
of Christ. Yet he's chosen, he's saved.
And not only that, not only in Southeastern, he was made a minister. a minister of the gospel of God
to spread the word of the Gentiles and wrote most of the New Testament.
Now is that not a privilege? Is that not an honor given only
to this man? No other man was given that honor.
You and I never had that honor given to us as the Apostle Paul
had. He had that honor. It was his
office. It was what was given to him. Yet we see in our text here The
great blessing that he was ascended up into heaven to see and hear
things that he could not be uttered. But because of such grace and
privileges, God gave him a thorn in the flesh. Thorn in the flesh. And here's the reason. You want
to know why? That he should not be exalted in Christ. what he tells us. He tells us
this. He's not ashamed to admit this.
He said, lest I should be exalted above measure to the abundance
of revelation, there was given to me authority of the flesh.
This is why it was given. Pride. Pride. Now some men speculate
as to what this is. Some think it's a malady, a physical
malady, such as sight. He was losing his sight or that
he was losing his speech. Now that would be a great malady
for a preacher. You have a man who's called to God with great
revelations and he can't talk? Oh man, what a difficulty that
would be. So that could be it. Others speculate
it was his guilt. You remember he was the one that
persecuted the church. He was the one that held the
coats while they saw Stephen to death. and consented to his
death. What guilt he must have felt. What shame and reproach must
have come over him often about that. But the Word of God is silent
as to what it is. It's a messenger sent to Buffett. I don't know what that is. I
don't know what he buffeted about. I don't know what was given to
him. But I believe it was silence so that we might ourselves impose
this into our life. Truly, believers are given thorns
in flesh. As the Apostle Paul was given
a thorn, even so are we as believers given thorns in the flesh. And so then I ask you, believer
in Christ, do you have any thorns? Are you overcome with sickness? Are you afflicted with pains
of the body? Are you brought to the dust of
death? Believer, are you suffering the
thorn of depression, sadness of mind and despair? That's a
thorn. Is your conscience afflicted
and suffering because of your guilt of sin? That's a thorn. Imagine that that is the most
prevalent thorn in the believer's side is his own sin, his own
flesh. It is in these times when we
are given these thorns that the messenger of Satan is sent to
buffet us, to beat us down. He accuses our souls. And he
uses either men or devils. These come to condemn us, assault
us, persecute us, and to bring doubts and fears into our minds. It is the purpose of our enemy
to cast doubt upon the perfect work of Christ and move us from
the simplicity that is in the gospel. Isn't that so? When you're
afflicted, what do you do? You start looking for multiple
ways out. You look for different things.
Different remedies. I know when we get sick, that's
the first thing we start looking for remedies out there. We start
trying to... Man, we pick... I heard on the
internet, if you just pick up this certain piece of grass,
eat it. And what do we do? We go out and get that grass
and we just eat it? I mean, we'll do anything. What
Satan does is he tries to move us from Christ. He tries to cast
doubt and despair upon the love of Christ. Well, if he loved
you, surely he wouldn't have said that thing. The flesh goes wet? No, that
sounds about right. And the spirit says, no, no,
that's not right, that's not right. And then you have a fight
on your hands. The thorn in the flesh against
the poke and the rod and dig deeper. It's not a spear. I thought of that. It's not a
spear in the flesh. It's a thorn. Why? They're worse. You can't get it out. It digs
itself in and it just wiggles in and you try to, you have to
tear off a ton of flesh to get that thing out. Same way with
these maladies. These afflictions were tempted
to look to the flesh, to look to man, to look to religion,
to look to law and find some peace, some comfort, some joy.
Is this your case? God in Providence set the thorn
in the flesh and messenger Satan to buffet you. Natural question
is why? Why? I can give you several reasons,
but then I'll give you the reason that Paul received. Pride. Pride.
Well, Pastor, I would admit, Paul said he would. So obviously you're more humble
than the apostle. You're just, you know, naturally you're just
more humble and proud of it. No, pride is truly a sin that
we're prone to. And it's not the pride of race,
it's not the pride of faith, but rather the pride of race
that believers are prone to. The worst pride of all. Consider the grace of God. Consider
your benefits, believer. Consider what God has given to
you, that of all the millions and millions of people that walked
upon the face of the earth, God chose you. I want you to be blessed. I choose you. I pass by all these
others and I want you. I want you. He chose
us. Consider that the zeal of the
Lord hath done this. This was no accidental choosing.
This was on purpose. And God, in love for you, in
love for you, sent His only Son to die in your stead, to suffer
under the wrath of God for your sin, so that you might be made
holy, so that you might receive all of the benefits and glories
and blessings of heaven and eternal life. And God, in time, came
to you polluted in your own blood, cast out to die, and God passed
by many others and came to you. Came to you. Called you to life
and faith. Should we not then say with John,
behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
that we should be called sons of God. Sons of God. You got
that? You're a son of God. Consider the greatness of His
mercy, in that there is no condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus.
That He has put us in union with His Son, He has justified us,
redeemed us, called us by His Holy Spirit, and listen, He keeps
you. His eye, you are as the apple
of His eye. He keeps you as though you were
the only object of His love and affection. He sets all of it
on you. What grace, abounding grace have
you been given above your fellows? Scriptures are clear concerning
the purpose of God in time and eternity, circumstance and providence. All things work together for
good to them who love God, to them who are called according
to his purpose. Lord Jesus Christ tells us when
all men shall be divided into two groups, you shall be divided
among the sheep, and you, he will say to you, come, you blessed
of my father, inherit the kingdom of God, prepared for you from
before the foundation of the world. Yet believer, though we are heirs
of all things, though we should receive all spiritual blessings
in Christ, And we know this, it does not
yet appear what we shall be. Have you found that to be true? It does not yet appear what we
shall be. But I know this, when he shall appear, I'll be like
him. I'll be like him. I'll be like the Son of God.
But we are heirs of all things and receive all these spiritual
blessings, yet God, that we should be conformed to
the image of Christ. And therefore God embraced in
his Holy Spirit to us, he has given us a new nature. New created nature. And listen, God himself dwells
in us. You realize that? May God help us to truly trust
the Word of God. The Spirit of God, know you not
that you are not your own? You've been bought with the price,
and the Spirit of God dwells in you. You are the temple of
God. Is there any more privilege that
a man can have than God make His abode in him? Now listen,
we don't believe that just plain unbelief. It's really not arrogance, is
it? It's not presumption that I'm saying these things. I'm
saying these things because the Word of God tells us these things.
God Himself tells us these things. Not presumption. Yet, when that builds up, That
builds up in our minds and everything is going well. Everything is
going smooth. Pride begins to creep in and
say, well, I know God loves me because I did this, because I'm
faithful, because I'm prayerful, because I, I, me, me, me. But
it's pride. And so what must God do? He must
again bring us down. He must bring us back to where
we should have been all along, at His feet. You see, the most humbling message
in all the world is grace. It should not be the most prideful
message. We were chosen, we were redeemed.
We were called. Therefore Paul says this, for
I say through the grace given of me to every man that is among
you, think not to think of himself more highly than he ought to
think, but to think soberly, according as God has dealt every
man the measure of faith. Believer in Christ, what sort
of people then would we be if God had not chastened us and
given us thorns in the flesh? Have you considered that? What
kind of arrogant fools would we be if God did not give us
these holds? If he did not chasten us, if
he let us go, what kind of fools would we be? How then would we bring greater
reproach upon our God and upon his Son? Should God cease to chasten us
and give us these thorns in the flesh, would we exalt ourselves
and thank ourselves too highly? Would we become proud boasters,
as though we had some merits or righteousness in ourselves,
to receive these benefits? Therefore, believer, are you
pressed down by the omnipotent hand of God? Are you made to
cling to the dust of the earth? I tell you why. So that you should
not be brought to above measure. so that you should think soberly
and righteously and godly. You should think soberly about
who you are and who God is. Consider then the reason for
our thorns in the flesh is to keep us from the pride of sin
and self-righteousness. Now then notice this, go back
to your text, look at this. And what does Paul do? He does
what any one of us will do in the thorn in the flesh. He prays. I told you this before, suffering
always drives us to prayer. Always. And what does he do?
He prays. I've bespoke the Lord three times
that this might depart from me. Lord, please let this depart
from me. tears with thorns, still piercing,
still aching. Lord, please, he cries even more. Isn't that the bit worse? You
cry, Lord, please take this from me. Oh, Lord, please take this
from me. And by the third time, he's on
his knees. Oh, God, please take this from me. Three times he begs the Lord,
cries, deliver me. We rebuke this messenger of Satan. I was reading in Psalm 77, this prayer
of Asaph. He said this, I cried to the
Lord with my voice. even unto God with my voice,
and He gave ear unto me. In the day of my trouble I sought
the Lord. My sore ran in the night and
ceased not. My soul refused to be comforted. I remembered God and was troubled. I complained and my spirit was
overwhelmed." Can anyone relate? You've got a thorn in the flesh,
that's exactly how you feel. Have you been next to trouble
so that you can't even look up? Are you at the ground and brought
to the dust of death by your afflictions and cry to the Lord?
I tell you this, God is not, God is not cold to your pain. God is not indifferent to your
pain. Friend, he's seen it. How should
we say he's indifferent to it? He's seen it. Will he not hear
your cries? He will hear your cries. He will
hear your petitions. How many times has he answered
them with an affirmative? Can you count? I guarantee you
he said yes more than he said no. You just don't remember all the times. How many times has
he even answered you before you even cried? Before the thorn got to us, he
delivered. You can't count. And yet, the one that bothers
us the most is the one we spend all our time concentrating on,
isn't it? That one that's hurting the most. I knew this. My back was hurting
until I had my surgery. When I had my surgery, that was
hurting. I don't even know if my back's hurting anymore. Because
now I'm concentrating on this. That's what happens to us when
we get that thorn in the flesh. We're only concentrating on that.
We're not remembering all of the things he's done before. And so now we begin to base God's
love on this one thorn. Well, God, if you don't approve
of this, then you must not love it. It's not true. For instance,
he hears our cries and he answers and delivers us out of our afflictions
so often. Now, we know this in our text,
we have no record of Paul ever being delivered from this. Ever. Most likely, he suffered
with this thorn until he died. He realized that he died with
those sores. He was not delivered from his
thorn in the flesh. But I tell you this, he was delivered
in death, wasn't he? We read in Hebrews 11 of those
prophets, the apostles said that who had trials of cruel mockings,
scourges, gave more over bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned.
They were sawn asunder. They were tempted. They were
slain with the sword. They wondered about in sheepskins
and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom
the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and
mountains and dens and caves of the earth. And listen, they
died there. If you listen, our thorn may
leave you the rest of our days. The thorn in the flesh may not
ever be delivered from you in this life. How then could we
endure? What if this thorn that God has given us now never is such afflictions. The answer Christ gives you.
Look at the answer. It's my second point, the answer. We see the cause of our afflictions,
pride, sin, to draw us closer to God, to keep us from looking
to self and look to Christ alone. Therefore, the suffering of God's
saints, He gives us the answer. Here it is. My grace is enough. My grace is sufficient for you. Suffering, afflicted saints,
here is the answer that should calm our souls, strengthen our
hearts, and give us confidence that we shall be sustained That's what it's telling me.
So look, God says, in your trouble, I'm the one holding you. You
think you're holding the trouble. You're not. God is holding you
and the trouble. And so as Asaph, when he cried
out in the sufferings and obligations, how was he comforted? This is
what he said, I will remember the works of the Lord, surely
I will remember His wonders of old. You want to be sustained,
you need to remember. Remember what? My grace! Asaph remembered God's deliverance
of Israel from Egypt. So then, in our afflictions,
when we cry unto God, it seems as though the heavens may be
shut up to our prayers, but let us remember the grace of our
Lord, that in our affliction, in our trial, that my grace,
my Savior's grace is sufficient, knowing this, that His grace
extended from eternity. In other words, there is no beginning
and no end to the grace of God for you. No beginning and no end. God
has always been gracious to you. He chose you how? In grace. He chose you in grace. How is it that we were quickened
to believe on Christ? even because God had before ordained
that we should have all spiritual blessings in Christ before the
world began. Remember, it's God's free grace
and not our merit, not our value, but rather He chose us in grace
and put us in union with His Son. You should remember that
in your tribe. For whom He did foreknow, He
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that
He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
He did predestinate, Him He also called. And whom He called, He
also justified. And whom He justified, He also
glorified. Every one of those words is already
in the past tense. Why? Because the grace of God
is already extended to you. It's been extended to you from
eternity. It's yours. He gave it to you. Second of all, remember the grace
of Christ that redeemed you. Behold, in your affliction the
eternal Son of God was set up to be your Savior from before
the world began. Go to Proverbs chapter 8. Proverbs chapter 8. Hear what
Jesus Christ says about His grace towards you. Proverbs chapter 8 and verse
22. Scripture says, the Lord possessed
me. That word means begat, begat
me. In the beginning of His way,
before His works of old. This is talking about the eternally
begotten Son of God. And notice verse 23, I was set
up from everlasting. Set up for what? To be the Savior. I was set up to be the Christ.
I was set up to be the High Priest. Set up to be your Redeemer from
the beginning, wherever the earth was. And look at verse 30. Then,
before the world was, I was by Him, by God, as one brought up
with Him, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before
Him. But notice where the heart of
Christ is. He said, rejoicing in the inhabitable part of the
earth, and my delights were with the sons of men. You got that
he was the delight of the father, but you were his delight. You were always his love. His love had been set on you
from eternity. Correlation of this Ephesians
1 according as he had chosen us in Christ before the foundation
of the world that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love having predestinated us under the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will
according to the good pleasure of his grace where it is the
praise the glory of his grace wherein he made us accepted in
the beloved Believe and remember the deliberate and willing love
of our Savior. See that His love was manifest
by His condescension to become a man. You want the proof of His love?
You want to see if He really loved you? Do you really love
me? What kind of question is that?
He came down to become a man for you. He came down to take
all of your wicked, vile sins and die for them upon a cross. And you ask if He loves you?
No. He said, My grace is sufficient. Remember, I died for you. I died
in your stead. And I rose again for your justification. Scripture says, unto us a child
was born, unto us a son was given. Who was the child born? That
was His condescension, His humanity. A son was given. The eternal
Son of God was given. And what was His word? The government
shall be upon His shoulder. What does that mean? The weight,
the responsibility of your salvation rested on His shoulders. He took the responsibility to
save your soul. He said, the reproaches of them
that reproached thee fell on me. He willingly took your death. What you deserved, hail him,
he suffered. You want to ask, does He love
you? Remember, My grace is sufficient
for thee. It was sufficient for you when
I died for your sins. Look now then at the believer
in the midst of your afflictions and see your Savior. See that
He was mocked and rejected. See that He suffered and fled.
That He impoverished, hungered and thirsted. who is just and righteous and
without sin was made sin for you. Scripture says the Lord had laid
on him the iniquity of us all and the sword of God's vengeance
struck his very soul and body on the tree. Behold the great
grace of our shepherd that laid down his life for you. Is that not sufficient love for
you? How can we in our suffering question
His love? For greater love hath no man in this, than a man lay
down his life for his freedoms. Therefore in our affliction
remember that He hath put away thy sin. How often our afflictions
are caused by our sins. Is it not mean then that we should
remember He hath put them away? He hath forever removed them. Even that question of His love,
you question His love, He's even put that away. Stephen, put that away. As far as the East is from
the West, so far have He removed our sins from us. So far have He removed our sins
that when God Himself looks, He cannot find them. In those
days and at that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel
shall be sought for, and there shall be none. Is that your thorn, your sin?
My grace is sufficient, it's sufficiently removed it. Your
sin is gone. Why do you pine? Why do you pine away? I've
already put it away. It's gone. Listen, believer, Jesus not only
manifests this to us in theory, but He's done it in experience,
hasn't He? When He came by grace, He came and quickened our souls
and gave us life. Is that not sufficient that He's
called you to life and faith? Listen, He did all this not when
you were a veteran. Isn't that right? He didn't wait
until you were a veteran to do all this. He did it while you
were yet sinners. Even when we were dead in sins,
He had quickened us together in Him. Romans 5, verse 6, it
says, when you were yet without strength in due time, Christ
died for the undaunted. Remember the sufficiency of His
grace to call you. He called you. You're his inheritance and he's
yours. The Lord's portion is His people.
Jacob is His locked inheritance. And where did He do it? He said,
I found Him in the desert and a waste howling wilderness. Is
that not where He found you? Remember that infant cast out
in his own blood, polluted in his own blood? That's how He
found you, isn't it? He found you polluted. He found
you dead. He found you without hope. He
found you without life. And He gave you life. He gave
you faith. He clothed you in His righteousness. He washed
you in His blood. Is that grace not sufficient
for you? Our grace is sufficient for you. Not only has He called
us, redeemed us, He chose us, but listen, His grace is sufficient
to keep us. Peter tells us, you who are kept
by the power of God unto salvation, ready to be redeemed at the last
hour. Psalmist David writes this, he
that dwelleth in the sacred place of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, he is
my refuge and my fortress, my God, in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver me from
the snare of the fowler, from the noises of pestilence. He
shall cover me, he shall cover thee with his feathers, and under
his wings shalt thou trust. His trust shall be thy shield. Is this not what you found to
be true? Is His grace not sufficient for thee? What then is the response
to such an answer? How should faith respond to His grace? But look how the Apostle responds. Go back there. He said this, Most gladly, therefore,
I will rather glory in my infirmities. The Apostle says in another place
that the chasing of the hand of the Lord is in no way pleasant. God is not telling you to put
on a fake smile. And pretend it's pleasant. Not what he's saying. He said, I'm going to glory in
my infirmity, and this is the reason that the power of Christ
might rest upon me. In other words, I am going to
abase myself in weakness and leave all of it to Him. It's like Hezekiah, when he was
surrounded by those in the Assyrian army, he had nowhere to go, no
way to get out. They were cursing him, they sent
him letters saying, you shouldn't trust in your God, none of the
other gods helped them, your God won't help you. Now what
did he do? He took the letters and he spread
them out before the Lord and said, you deal with it. And God dealt with it. Paul said,
I'm most glad that then I'm going to glory in my infirmity. I'm
going to say it how it is. I'm weak. I have no power in
myself. I have no strength to keep this
up. I cannot continue in the faith
in my own strength. Therefore, I would most gladly
refer to his strength. Leave it to him. Why? Because in my weakness,
then is his strength manifest the most. Do you really want to know his
strength? Do you want to know the power
of his grace? In order to see that, you have
to see how weak you really are. So when you're praying for
that, remember you're praying to see your own weakness. Here I pray for patience. Suffer. Suffer. It all comes one way. You want patience. You're going to suffer for it. Because that's the only way you
learn patience. Suffer. And so then do you desire to
see his strength? Then he's going to put you in
the weakest position Isn't that what He did to Israel? When He
pinned those Israelites in? Remember, He put them at the
Red Sea, and He put the Mappers on the one side, and He put that
big hole on the other side, and the sea was before them, and
Pharaoh was behind them. They had nowhere to go. They
were pinned in. What did you see? You saw their
weakness. And then what did you see? You
saw the greatness of His strength to do it. Therefore, if you want
to see the strength and power of God, we're going to see it
only when we're weakest. Therefore, rejoice in your weakness. Why? Because He's about to show
you something. He's about to show you His strength. Even at the test of death, Isn't
that the weakest state a man can be in, is in fear? Isn't that, then, the greatest
display of his strength? When a man has nothing he can
do, and what does he do? He trusts in Christ. And the
last breath he breathes, boom, he's going to see the fullness
of that strength when he's ushered into glory. So you suffer. You have a thorn in the flesh.
Remember God sent it so that you should not be exalted above
your measure. You should see who you are and
you should see who He is. Then He said the answer to this
that gives you comfort is this. My grace is sufficient. I chose
you in grace. I redeemed you in grace. I called
you in grace. I keep you in grace. I forgive
you in grace. I love you in grace. bringing myself to Christ. It's
sufficient for you. What Paul said, show me more
of your grace. I'm going to glory in my infirmities
and not my privileges. Why? Because then is the power
of Christ resting upon me when I have nothing else to give. May God even now show
us the sufficiency of his grace. A stampede has been issued.