Flesh and Thorns 2 Corinthians 12:5-10 Rev. Michael D. Halley June 25, 2017 Suffolk Christian Church Suffolk, Virginia Third Sunday After Pentecost ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ None of us gets out of here without pain. 1 Those are the words of the late actress Mary Tyler Moore 2, at one time America s sweetheart. From all appearances we could easily believe that her life was charmed. But it wasn t. She was married as a teenager and then divorced. Her sister in college overdosed and died. Then she got married a second time and divorced. In 1983 she married for a third and final time. Then, tragically, her son accidentally shot and killed himself. In her despair she turned to alcohol. Later she got off of it, but she had also been suffering from diabetes for many years. In 2011 she underwent brain surgery for a benign tumor. America s sweetheart, but not without deep, deep heartaches. Truly, none of us gets out of here without some kind of pain. St. Paul was probably the second most influential person who ever lived. Paul, more than anyone else except Christ, fashioned our faith. He wrote the majority of the New Testament and was the chief theologian of the Christian faith. If anyone deserved to live a charmed life, it was St. Paul. But he did not live such a life. Listen again to what he had to say about his experience: Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a 1
Page -2- thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:7-10, NIV). skin. I was given me a thorn in my flesh. This was not just a prick in the The meaning of the Greek word used here for thorn (skolops - SKOHLops) does not mean just a tiny thorn like you would find on a rose. It means a sharp stake 3. In the first century, sharpened wooden stakes were often placed in dug out pits, with the hope that enemy soldiers would fall on them and be impaled. Stakes were also used as a method of torture. Sharpened stakes, as one commentator put it, were the roadside bombs of the ancient world 4, and they were described in Greek by the same Greek word that Paul uses for his thorn in the flesh. In other words, Paul felt like he had been stabbed by a sharpened wooden stake, by a messenger of Satan, he says, to torment me, to keep him from being too conceited. What does it mean to be conceited? It means to have an excessively high opinion of oneself 5. Now, the Bible does not tell us the nature of Paul s thorn, or his stake 6. Some have suggested it may have been epileptic seizures. Others have suggested that it was an acute pain or some chronic sickness. Bad eyesight has also been put forth, possibly an after effect of the blinding light he experienced on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3). Maybe it was the venomous criticism that was heaped on him by some members of the church of that day. And such criticism hurts more than you
Page -3- can imagine, even in the church today. Whatever his thorn was, Paul knew that what Mary Tyler Moore was saying was true: none of us gets out of here without pain. Life does not always go the way we plan, and Paul knew that all too well. But Paul also knew that pain is not God s last word on the human condition. There is hope for those who sufferer. There is victory for those who are anguished. We are God s people. We are followers of Jesus Christ. With God s help we can deal with any thorn, any obstacle, any heartache. Pain and suffering and loss can even bring us closer to God. God does not send pain and suffering to us. Please understand that. If you are going through a difficult time right now, it is not because God is punishing you for some reason. Neither is God trying to send you a message. God doesn t send pain and suffering in order to bring us closer to him. St. Paul calls his thorn in the flesh a messenger of Satan. It didn t come from God. God was not trying to get Paul s attention through his discomfort, whatever that thorn might have been. But God can use his pain, his suffering to make him a stronger man. God can use his pain and suffering to make him a blessing to others. Therefore Paul could write: I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. God does not cause our suffering, God shares our suffering when we have a thorn in the flesh. And one preacher wonders if it is a coincidence that when Christ hung on the cross, his head was crowned with thorns. 7 Christian, your life is not your own. You are not your own; Paul wrote, you were bought at a price. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, NIV) Therefore, since we are not our own, let us glorify God: Let your private meditations magnify
God; let your songs be to him when no one hears you but himself, and let your public zeal, let the purity of your conversation, let the earnestness of your life, let the universal holiness of your character, glorify God with your body and with your spirit. 8 Page -4- None of us gets out of here without some kind of pain. But we can glorify God even in the midst of our pain. A man was born without arms. He tells how his mother always dressed him for years. She fed him and she dressed him every day. But one day she put his clothes in the middle of the floor and said to this armless child, Dress yourself. The boy said, I can t dress myself, I don t have... But she said, You ll have to dress yourself. And she left the room. The man said, I kicked, screamed, kicked, screamed, yelled, You don t love me anymore! Finally, he realized that if he were to get any clothes on, he d have to do it himself. After a long time of struggle, he got some clothes on. He said, It was not until later that I knew my mother was in the next room crying. 9 That was a wise mother. Sometimes our suffering can teach us to be prepared for the world in which we must live. Do you have a thorn in the flesh? Is it something that you pray about? Have you asked for healing, like Paul asked? What has God revealed to you about this thorn?
Page -5- Some years ago I purchased the classic devotional, My Utmost for His Highest 10, by Oswald Chambers. I started to read it several times, but did not become a daily reader until a year or so ago. It is not easy reading, but the thoughts are very challenging. After I had completed the text of this sermon, I picked the book up to read the devotion for June 25. Mr. Chambers spoke directly to me about this same matter of thorns, though in this thought he uses the word sorrow. Listen to what he had to say: As a saint of God, my attitude toward sorrow and difficulty should not be to ask that they be prevented, but to ask that God protect me so that I may remain what He created me to be, in spite of all my fires of sorrow [or, if you will, thorns ].... We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. If we try to evade sorrow, refusing to deal with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.... Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow.... life. The only was to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow... the thorns of Our sole purpose as Christians is to glorify God. God has a perfect plan for each of us and that plan may include a thorn or two along the way. Your
Page -6- life is not about you. My life is not about me. It is about God and God s will for us. If, or should I say when, thorns come, we give glory to God and go on living. I invite you to consider God s invitation, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28, NIV). Cast your cares upon God. Why die of thirst when you stand upon the brink of a lake? Why starve to death when you are within arm s length of the Living Bread? Why live in a hovel of spiritual misery when Christ has provided a mansion of divine peace? Hear and accept the divine invitation today: Come unto me, and rest! 11 Let us pray together: Dear heavenly Father, all honor, praise, and glory are yours. We your humble servants bow before you to acknowledge your sovereignty over us and your authority to direct our lives for your own glory. Help us, O God, to accept the thorns which come our way, understanding how we can learn from them and live productive lives of service to you. We pray this in the name of our Saviour Jesus. Amen +==+==+==+==+==+==+ All Scripture references are from New International Version, NIV, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc., unless otherwise indicated.
Page -7- +==+==+==+==+==+==+ Sunday Sermons from Suffolk Christian Church are intended for the private devotional use of members and friends of the church. Please do not print or publish. Thank you. Suggestions for sermon topics are always welcome! 1. Quoted in The 12 Essentials of Godly Success, by Tommy Nelson (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005), p. 113. 2. See Mary Tyler Moore, Who Incarnated the Modern Woman on TV, Dies at 80", published by The New York Times, January 25, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/arts/television/mary-tyler-moore-dead.html. There is also a very complete biography at wikipedia.com. 3. Joseph H. Thayer, Thayer s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, http://www.studylight.org/desk/interlinear. 4. Quoted from Thorns of Grace, by the Rev. King Duncan, Dynamic Preaching Third Quarter 2009 Sermons, https://sermons.com/sermon/thorns-of-grace/1370740. 5. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conceited 6. See What was Paul s thorn in the flesh?, at Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, https://carm.org/paul-thorn-in-flesh. 7. The Rev. King Duncan, cited above. 8. Quoted from the Rev. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Bought With a Price, the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, August 6, 1871, http://www.romans45.org/spurgeon/sermons/1004.htm. 9. Told by Fred B. Craddock, in Craddock Stories (Chalice Press, 2001), p. 97. 10. It is published in an updated edition edited by James Reimann (Discovery House Publishers, 1992). This devotional is also available online at https://utmost.org. 11. Quoted from The Three Invitations of Christ, by Billy Graham, May 2, 2012, https://billygraham.org/decision-magazine/may-2012/the-three-invitations-of-christ/.
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