1 God Causes Grief! Thanks Be to Him 2 Cor. 12:9 Okay, something is going on here that I need to address. The Old Testament reading from last Sunday and the Epistle reading for today are forcing my speech. Listen to these words from Lamentations chapter 3: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. There s no problem there. We love to hear those words the Lord s love never ceases, His mercy never ends, He is faithful to His promises. But then it says, For the Lord will not cast off forever, but though His cause grief, He will have compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love. Come again? Though He cause grief? God causes grief? And then the verse goes on and says, For He does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. Willingly? So God does afflict us and cause us grief, albeit not willingly, but He still does it? And then comes today s epistle text from 2 Corinthians chapter 12. What s up with that? St. Paul says that God gave him a thorn in the flesh to keep him from being too elated, too happy. God gives thorns in the flesh? These must be mistakes. How can a good God cause grief and affliction? How can a good God give thorns in the flesh to keep us from feeling too good? Well, I don t know how much of a shock it is for you to hear all this so early on a Sunday morning, but, yes, there are times, many times, when God does cause grief and affliction in our lives. Yes, there are times, many times, when God will give us a thorn in our flesh. And why would our good God do such things? To teach us these two lessons about suffering: First, that God will give us more than we can handle on our own; and second, that God can handle what we can t.
2 Let s take a brief look at St. Paul first. When he wrote his letters to the Christians in Corinth, Paul was wrapping us his third and final missionary journey through Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. By this time, he had suffered much on account of preaching Christ. We know about his harrowing escapes from those who sought his life, the beatings that left him perilously near death, the stonings, the whippings, the sleepless nights, the hunger, and the shipwrecks. What we may not know much about is that beyond these afflictions Paul experienced relentless opposition from both Jews and Gentiles Jews because he was now a believer in Christ, and Gentiles because he was Jewish. Even many within the community of faith held Paul in suspicion and believed that his calling to be an apostle like Peter, Andrew, James, and John, was of questionable authority. So Paul was forced constantly to defend his calling as a true apostle of Christ; one sent by Jesus just like the others. But here in 2 Corinthians, Paul uses a most unusual method of showing that he is a true apostle of the crucified and living Christ. Evidently John wasn t the only apostle to have been given a special revelation of heaven. Paul too was allowed to see and hear things in heaven. But here is the difference. John was told by God to write down what he heard and saw and relate it to the churches in Asia Minor. Paul was told not to write down his experience. He was told not to reveal anything of what he heard and saw to anyone. That is why he doesn t even mention that it happened, except here to the Corinthian Christians. Instead, to prove his apostleship, Paul speaks of his sufferings and his weaknesses. Why? Because talking of glory in special visions and revelations of God would only give Paul a big head full of self-serving pride. And we get that! I mean, who could keep such a revelation to himself? But visions and revelations are not what being a Christian is about. Being a Christian is about following the example of Christ. Jesus
3 knew first hand what life is like in heaven, but He rarely talked about it. Instead, He endured hardship, ridicule, and suffering. And just as there were times Christ Himself had to suffer, so will all those who follow Him. Following Christ is not all fun and games, success and riches, name-it-and-claim-it. Following Christ demands humility, sacrifice, and weakness. Why? Because then the true power and glory of the grace of Christ really shine through. This was the whole purpose of God giving Paul that thorn in his flesh. Paul does not reveal precisely what that thorn was. And that s the point. It doesn t matter what it was. For Paul it was one thing, for Peter it was another, for you or me it is a third. Whatever it is, God gives it for a purpose to get us to know the depth of our weakness so that we may see the heights of His grace. And make no mistake about it. Having that thorn is no picnic. It is painful, frustrating, and wearisome. It will drive us to say, I can t take it anymore. I can t handle it! Paul himself reached that point several times. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, he wrote in the text, that it should leave me. And when Paul pleaded to God about the thorn in his flesh, I am sure Paul did not simply say three times, Please, oh, please, take this from me, Please, oh, please, take this from me, Please, oh, please, take this from me, and then give up. He had earnestness in his prayer. (We talked about earnestness in last week s sermon.) Paul s pleading came from the depth of his soul over and over again. But notice how God answered His beloved apostle s heartfelt prayer. God said, No. No, I am not going to take this thorn away from you. You must carry it. You must suffer it. But I will give you My grace to endure it. For My power is made perfect (or complete) in weakness.
4 Doesn t this remind you of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane? Even before He would bear the crown of thorns in the flesh of His brow, Jesus had to endure the thorn of suffering that the Father would not remove. And remember how many times Jesus prayed that the Father would remove His thorn? Yup, three times as well. And how earnestly did Jesus pray that the Father take the thorn, the cup of suffering, away from Him? He prayed so earnestly that His sweat was like great drops of blood. Have you or I prayed so earnestly about something that we started to sweat? And the Sunday when the AC went out in church doesn t count! But the Father s answer to His suffering Son was clear. No. No, I am not going to take this thorn away from You. You must carry it. You must suffer it. But I will give you My grace to endure it. For My power is made perfect (or complete) in weakness. So Jesus lived with that thorn until His death, just as Paul had to, and just as you and I may have to as well. Is there a thorn in your flesh right now that God has given to you to bring you to know your weaknesses; your need for Him? Maybe you don t have one right now, but you will in the future. But remember, God intends that thorn to be for your ultimate good in order to trust yourself less and Him more. And yet, as it is so often the case, when and where God is working good in you, our old evil foe will use that very opportunity to try to work bad in you. That is why Paul also referred to his thorn as a messenger of Satan. It is not that God sent Satan to Paul. God does not operate that way. He sent the thorn and Satan tried to use the thorn to work his message. And what is the message of Satan to us? Fear, hopelessness, doubt, anger. You know how it goes. When some grief or affliction weighs heavily upon you, you pray and pray and pray to God to deliver you from it, to take it away. All you want is for God to pull that nasty thorn out of your flesh. But
5 still it lingers. God is saying, No. No, I am not going to take this thorn away from you right now. You must bear it. You must suffer it. And at the same time what other message floats through to your heart a message from the devil, the unbelieving world around us, or even from our own sinful nature? It is a message that goes something like this: What kind of God do you have? He doesn t care about you. He doesn t hear you. Or maybe the false message goes something like this: What kind of Christian are you? You aren t good enough for God to do good to you. You aren t good enough to be His child. That s enough! Stop the harassing! Stop the tormenting! The Christian life is not about special visions and revelations. It is not about having spiritual gifts or healings. It is not even about getting God to answer my prayers my way. The Christian life is about seeing everything by a new reality; a reality that comes through the cross and resurrection of Christ in which the old has passed away and the new has come. God s strength comes down in weakness. He identifies with the lowly. He rises to the power of life through death. So, God s answer to prayer is not judged according to the outcome we ask for, but in the strength He gives us through faith in Jesus Christ. Let me repeat that. God s answer to prayer is not judged according to the outcome we ask for, but in the strength He gives us through faith in Jesus Christ. The very Savior who suffered and died to atone for your sins and mine has promised that whenever He gives you or me a thorn to get us to know our weakness, and whenever the devil, the world, and our sinful self tries to use that thorn to tempt us to doubt, despair, or unbelief, with that temptation God will also provide the way of escape that we may be able to endure it. That way of escape is the living Savior, Jesus. He will strengthen you to bear
6 the thorn and to resist temptation, even if the thorn must linger for the rest of your natural life. He will work in you to reveal your weakness so that He can fill you with His strength and grace. Then, in the end, you will look back and say, Wow! I never thought I would be able to get through that. And Jesus will smile and say to you, You couldn t. That s the point. But in your weakness, My power is made complete. And it was in My power that you were strong. Thanks be to God that He does cause grief and that He does bring affliction in our lives. Thanks be to God that He gives us thorns in our flesh. Thanks be to God for these things not because we have some latent masochistic desires, but because by giving us more than we can handle on our own, we will know our weakness; and then His saving power will be all the more evident in our lives. So, we say with St. Paul, Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me For when I am weak (in my flesh), then I am strong (in Christ). Amen.