back in 2 Corinthians chapter
12 with me, if you would. As we read a moment ago, the
Apostle Paul had faced and endured many hard trials after he met
Christ on the road to Damascus. And as we read beginning in chapter
11, verse 24, he begins to speak of these trials and great detail. And since we read these, if I
may but paraphrase for a moment, these are the things that he
said. He said, I've been flogged five times with the Jews' 39
lashes. I was beaten by Roman rods three
different times. I was pummeled with rocks once.
He had been shipwrecked three times and immersed in the open
sea for a whole night and a day. His travelings were hard, year
in and year out. He had crossed rivers, fended
off robbers, struggled with friends, and struggled with foes. He'd been at risk in the city,
at risk in the country. Endangered by the desert sun
and sea storms and betrayed by those he thought were his brothers.
He'd done hard labor, spent many a long and lonely night without
sleep, and had missed many a meal. He'd been blasted by the cold,
naked to the weather. He had suffered many things for
the gospel's sake, and that was only the half of it. That was
the physical side. But when you throw in the daily
pressures and anxieties of all the churches that he cared for,
the mental sufferings also took their toll. As the old saying
goes, he had been at the end of his rope, I'm sure, several
times. And had felt real desperation
in his bones. And we must always remember that
the great men of the Bible were just that. They were men. Men plagued with sin, plagued
with doubts, plagued with fears, the same as we are. We have a
tendency to put these men on a higher pedestal. They were
real men plagued with the same things that you and I are. When
men were deceived from the gospel, he got angry. And he said, a
zealous fire burned in his belly. He even tells of the time when
he was in Damascus and the governor of the king posted guards at
the city gates to arrest him. And he crawled through a window
in the wall and was let down in a basket and had to run for
his life. But all of that was nothing compared
to the blessings that he had through his sufferings. He said
over and over again, I glory in my infirmities. He spoke of
a day that Christ swept him into the third heaven, which he called
paradise. And he said, I don't know if
I was in or out of the body, but I heard unspeakable things
spoken. And I was forbidden to tell what
I heard. And in verse 7 of chapter 12,
2 Corinthians, and he said, unless I should be exalted above measure
through the abundance of the revelations, that was given to
me a thorn in the flesh. The messenger of Satan to buffet
me lest I should be exalted above measure. Prince, he was shown
things in the third heavens that no man had ever been shown. And this shows his manhood because
he would have exalted himself above measure had God not given
him this thorn in the flesh. He says that two times, lest
I should be exalted above measure. And in verse 8 he says, for this
thing I have assault the Lord three times that it might depart
from me. Of all the things that Paul had
endured, this seemed to be the one thing that caused him the
greatest grief. It caused him so much grief that
he begged the Lord three different times to deliver him from it. We're not told what this thorn
in the flesh was, but it was a very sore and trying one. I don't know, maybe he never
got older the day that he ordered the death and held the cults
of those who stoned God's messenger, Stephen. I don't know. We're
not told, so we're not meant to know. But it could have been
many things. We all have thorns in the flesh.
Then we're told in verse 9 something that can be of great encouragement
to us. We can learn a wonderful, wonderful
lesson from this verse of Scripture. God is so pleased to grant it
to us. And he said unto me, verse 9,
who did? The Lord whom he petitioned. He says, 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." Now I want to give you three things from this
verse. And may God always bring them to our remembrance as we
face the many trials, tribulations, and struggles of life for Christ's
sake. My first is that God's grace
is all sufficient. The Lord here assures his chosen
servant by saying, my grace is sufficient for thee. Now there
are a few ways you can read this and not be in error. You know
the word grace means love. It means unmerited favor. So
we could read it as, my favor is sufficient for thee. We know
that God sends the trouble. We studied that in Job a few
weeks back. Satan goes before the sons of
God and he says, God said, what are you doing? He said, I'm walking
to and fro. I'm looking for somebody. I'm
as a roaring lion seeking whom I may devour. And God said, hast
thou considered my servant Job? Friends, God sends the truth.
And He sends it for our good. And He sends it for His glory.
His grace is sufficient. It will get the job done. Christ's
love is enough for us. Now in the midst of your trouble,
Christ says, it is enough that you're my favored one. It is
enough that you're my chosen subject of my grace. My love
is enough for you. What a comforting word. It doesn't
really require an explanation, does it? My grace, my love, my
unmerited favor is sufficient for you. You repeat those words
to yourself and even now understand that in your daily trials, that
the well beloved Savior looks down on you and he whispers in
your ear and he says, my love is all you need. He says, no
need to worry, no need to fret anymore. My love, my favor, my
grace is enough. It's enough. It's enough for
you. I'll see you through this thing. Friends, if God wills that I
be poor, I'll be poor. But by His all-sufficient grace,
I'll learn to be content. If I'm severely tried, His love
is more than enough to comfort me, for He is my shelter in the
time of storm, and it'll always, always be well with my soul. You know why? His grace is sufficient
for me. If I'm sick, as long as He comes
and visits me and He reveals His heart of love for me and
to me, I shall be satisfied. For He continues to teach me
again and again that His grace is enough for me. If I'm persecuted,
cast out, forsaken, Christ will cause me to cheerfully bear it,
for His love can sustain me, because it's all sufficient.
And if we should be left alone as to have no one to care for
us in the whole world, if all our family should forsake us,
and every friend should prove to be a Judas, His love is enough. We can read the text as it's
written, and rejoice. My grace is sufficient for thee. Notice who it is that speaks
here. That's where the comfort lies. It's Christ, the sovereign
Savior, who's in the heavens and does whatsoever He pleases.
Psalm 115. That's who's speaking. His grace
is sufficient for all His people at all times. It pleased the
Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." All fullness. Colossians 1.19. This is the
grace which is sufficient for us. It greatly helps our faith
when we can see the relationship that exists between us and the
Redeemer. Christ is our covenant head.
And God has been pleased to give Him and all His infinite riches
to the Lord Jesus Christ as our sufficient, sufficient Savior. Can we limit the power of Christ? Can we limit the power of God?
Men endeavor to, but to no avail. Of course we can. Then His grace
must be more than sufficient for us. Don't we know that God
does not give the Spirit by measure unto Him? God has not withheld
His Spirit from Him. So we must, friends, we must
be assured that Christ is everything and all that we need. Now if
we say we believe that, and it's easy to believe it when things
are going well, but do you believe it in the times of deepest sorrow,
struggles, and trials? Well, He's promising never to
leave us nor forsake us. And when the sovereign God is
at your side, dear friend, there's no trial that's too big. His
grace is right now sufficient. Sufficient for you and for me.
As we read, Paul had been beaten with rods, stoned, shipwrecked,
in perils often. And in all these things, God's
grace was sufficient for him. And the Lord Jesus Christ reminds
him as he must remind us. Because we're fickle and fretting
and worrisome and forgetful people. But the Lord reminds Paul that
the same grace, the same grace that was sufficient in past trouble
is sufficient in this present trouble. It may be a different
kind of trouble. It may be a continual trouble,
a persistent thorn in the flesh, but it's the same grace that
delivers and is all-sufficient. God's grace in Christ is sufficient
for every trouble. Every trouble, past, present,
future. And also consider this great
thought. Who is the Lord's grace sufficient for? It's sufficient
for thee, for you, for me, for us, all that trust in Christ. His grace is sufficient. Surely
the grace of such a one as my Lord Jesus is indeed sufficient
for such an insignificant being as I am. Mr. Spurgeon once said,
said it like this. He said, if some tiny little
fish was so thirsty, then it troubled it with fear of drinking
the ocean dry. Had a little old fish in the
ocean and he's so thirsty, he's worrying about whether or not
he's going to drink the ocean dry. Shouldn't we as poor little
creatures always remember what grace there is in Christ and
believe that it's all ours? It's all sufficient. It's vast. It's great. There's enough to
go around. Our great Lord feeds all the
fish in the sea, the birds in the air, all the cattle on the
hills. He guides the stars. He upholds all things by His
omnipotent hand. How then can we, His beloved,
ever be destitute or without help in times of trouble? Do we believe what we say we
believe? And I tell you this without reservation, if our needs
were a thousand times larger than they are, they would not
come near the vastness that His power can provide. The Father
hath committed all things into His hand. Why should we doubt
Him? Listen and hear Him speak to
you. Can you hear Him say, My grace is sufficient for you? is sufficient. Second point,
our strength is perfected in weakness. Look at the verse again
with me. And He said, unto me, my grace
is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. The power of Christ can only
be perfectly revealed in His people by bearing them up, keeping
them, and sustaining them when they're in trouble. Who knows
the perfection of the strength of God till he shows how God
can make poor, puny creatures strong. It's been less than a
year ago. Our dear brother Bill Wilson
went to be with our Lord. And in his last days here, we
spoke to each other on the phone almost every day. And I made
it my resolve to encourage him and comfort him every time we
spoke. But do you know what happened?
It wound up every time that he encouraged me and comforted me.
You see, his strength was perfected in weakness. He was the strong
one. I was the weak one. Though he
was physically weak, he was spiritually strong. Because that's how our great
God perfects His strength in us. In our weakness. Did you hear that? In your weakness,
friends, He's made strong, perfected in us. God's strength is seen
and made perfect in our weakness. When the child of God suffers,
and he's under necessities and distress and infirmities, that's
when the power of God is seen. Every time. You know, I've thought
about this. It was when those tiny creatures
called lice. In one of the plagues that God
put upon Egypt, that Pharaoh trembled, and his magicians said,
this is the finger of God. Little tiny lice caused the greatest
ruler of that day to tremble. And his magicians said, This
is the finger of God. And always God's greatest glory
seems to come from things weak and despised. This is equally
true to us. God's strength is made perfect
to us when we see that we are but weak and helpless creatures. Has God shown you just how weak
and helpless you are? We seem to think in our own minds
that we're something. or something special. We can
do a lot of things. We can't do nothing. And in studying
this, that term Paul uses here, made perfect, also means achieves
its purpose. We can read it like this. For
my strength fully achieves its design and weakness. When our
Lord has accomplished His purpose in us, the result will be to
empty us out. To make us understand the utter
vanity of self. Man in his best state is altogether
vanity. When we're in our best state
before God, we're nothing but vanity. And He does this in saving
us and He does it in keeping us. He will always see that we
must put our trust in Him and Him alone. All believers who
are ready to depart this life, whenever their time may be, they'll
feel themselves to be less than the least. But those who think
there's a great deal in them which is commendable have yet
to see their strength perfected in weakness. Those who enter
glory will carry nothing of self with them. I can assure you that.
And none will enter there as long as they talk proudly of
all their achievements and attainments. Those who claim to possess, I've
heard men call it the higher life, and boast of their purity
have yet to see Christ. We don't talk about works of
righteousness that we've done. We have none. And yet those who
enjoy the highest life and glory cry out, not unto us, O Lord,
not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory for Thy mercy and
for Thy true sake." Now there's the cry of a believer. There's
the cry of a child of God. He's been emptied. I must decrease. He must increase. It's the revelation,
dear friends, of true spiritual fitness. Being well before God
Almighty. When self is dead and grace alone
reigns. The strength of God is never
perfected in us until our weakness is perfected. When our weakness
is consciously and thoroughly felt. Have you felt your weakness?
Has God shown it to you? Have you felt it? Then the strength
of God has done its work. My third and last point is this.
The grace of God in Christ is indwelling power. It's indwelling
power. Look at the last part of verse
9. Paul says, Most gladly, Therefore
will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may
rest upon me." A child of God is going to learn to glory in
their infirmities for this blessed reason, that the power of God
may rest upon them. What is the power of Christ? The answer to that would take
much longer than I have time to answer. But I can tell you
this much. The power of Christ is the power
to suffer. It's the power to be made nothing.
God Himself, my friends, became a man and He suffered. And He was made of no reputation
that He might save us who are nothing and have a bad reputation. It was the power of God that
descended to the very depths of hell itself for love of God
and for love of His chosen. Love and patience is the power
of Christ. And even now, it is the power
to subdue the wicked. The wicked, deceitful hearts
of men made to trust Him and Him alone. That's the power of
God. Paul said, I'm not saying to the gospel of Christ. We looked
at that this morning. It's the power of God unto salvation
to those that believe. Do you believe? Christ is a sufferer. The power of God made Christ
the King. Now that word, rest, in this
verse is the same Greek word that John used when he wrote
in 1 John, when he said the Word was made flesh and dwelt. Same word, rest, in the Greek. Even better, the Greek takes
it a little further and says tabernacled. Tabernacled. The Word was made flesh and tabernacled
among us. The passage before us means just
this, Paul said, I glory in my infirmities that the power of
Christ may tabernacle with me. What power did Paul expect to
be tabernacled in him? It was the power of grace, the
power of truth. And it must be so because our
Lord said, Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. What more
can we desire, I ask? It's the grace and faithfulness
of God that tabernacles within us and shines forth from our
soul. Paul says, I glory in my infirmities
that this same power may tabernacle in me. I triumph in weakness. That goes against everything
the world teaches. Most of the things of God do
in weakness and reproaches and necessities and persecutions
and distresses for Christ's sake, we triumph. This is so that I
may suffer, and be humbled, and be obedient, and prove my love
to God, even as Christ Himself did. Paul wrote in Romans 8,
he said, If children, then heirs, heirs of God join heirs of Christ. And if we suffer with Him, we
may be also glorified together. You see, glory comes in suffering,
for Christ's sake. Paul says, when I'm weak, then
I'm strong. Strong to prove my love by enduring
the weakness and the afflictions which I accept from God as my
good and His glory for His sake. This is the desire, friends,
of nothings and nobodies. I've seen little captions over
church signs and in bulletins where everybody is somebody.
Friends, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is where everybody
is nobody. Lord, take this thorn from my
flesh. No answer from heaven. Lord,
again, please take this thorn from my flesh. God remains silent. The third time, Lord, I beg you,
take this thorn from my flesh. In your weakness, I'm made strong. My grace, my grace, it's whose
grace it is that matters. My grace is sufficient for you.