Deo Gloria
Sermon for February 16, 2025
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Theme: Find Your Strength in God’s Grace!
- Thorns keep us humble.
- God’s grace gives us strength.
How many of us like to brag about our weaknesses? “Hey, guess what? I can bench press all of 50 pounds. I used to be able to bench over 200 back when I was in college, and now I’m down to 50. Yeah!” “Hey, you know I’m the worst player on our baseball team. I always have to sit on the bench and hardly ever get to play. I haven’t had single hit all year.” Or how many of us like to brag about the troubles and difficulties in our lives? “Hey, I lost my job the other day. I worked for the same company for the past 25 years, and the other day they told me they don’t need me anymore.” “Hey, you know, my parents had this really bad argument the other night. They were yelling and screaming at each other. It was so great!”
Who of us would do something like that? And yet, isn’t that what we hear the apostle Paul doing in the verses of our text? He says that he would gladly boast about his weaknesses. He says that he delights in weaknesses and insults and hardships and persecutions and difficulties. Why? Why would he boast about things you and I would tend to keep quiet about? Because Paul recognized that his strength as a Christian, his strength for living a Christian life and for serving his Savior, his strength to deal with the challenges and difficulties of life did not come from himself. It came from God. That’s where he directs the Christians in Corinth. And that’s where he directs you and me. Don’t look to yourself for strength. Look to God and his grace. Find your strength in God’s grace.
If you’re familiar with Paul’s two letters to the Christians in Corinth, you know there were a lot of problems in that congregation. Among them was that some people were attacking him and challenging his apostleship. “Who is Paul to tell us that we need to excommunicate one of our members? Who is Paul to rebuke us for eating meat sacrificed to idols? I’ll eat it if I want to. Who is Paul to tell us how we should or should not use our spiritual gifts? Who does he think he is?” So in his second letter Paul felt it necessary to defend his apostleship, that even though he wasn’t one of the original 12 disciples, he was nevertheless an apostle of Christ, someone who had been directly called by Jesus and sent to preach the good news of salvation in his name.
As part of his defense, Paul even went so far as tell them about an experience he had had a number of years before, a remarkable experience, an incredible experience. He had actually been given the privilege of seeing heaven. In the verses before our text he writes: “I know a man in Christ [and the man he’s referring to is himself]…. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago…was caught up to Paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell”(vv. 2,4). Can you imagine something like that? Can you imagine actually seeing the glory and beauty of heaven? Can you imagine seeing the saints in heaven? Hey, there’s Abraham and there’s Moses and there’s David. Wow! Can you imagine seeing the angels and listening to them sing? Can you imagine seeing Jesus in all his glory? What an awesome and thrilling experience that must have been! And what a tremendous encouragement for Paul’s faith and his ministry. “Hey, if you’re wondering whether there really is an afterlife, if you’re wondering whether or not heaven is real, listen up. I’ve been there. I’ve actually seen it. I can tell you all about it and how to get there too.”
But then, because he had received these surpassingly great revelations, Paul tells us that he had received something else as well: a thorn in the flesh. What this thorn in the flesh was we don’t know. Some suggest that it may have been a disease like malaria. Others suggest that it may have involved some problem with his eyes, because of a comment he made in his letter to the Galatians. Still others suggest that it may have been something like epilepsy. Whatever it was, we know it was something that bought pain and suffering to Paul, something that was very irritating and troubling to him, something he felt he could live much better without.
How about you? Do you have any thorns in your life, things that bring you pain and suffering, things that are very troubling and irritating to you, things you wish you could live without? Maybe it’s an illness or an ailment of some kind, something you’ve been struggling with for months already or maybe years? It just never seems to get better. Or maybe it’s a mental thing: something like depression or anxiety. You’ve been the doctor. You’ve gone to counseling. You take medication. Some days it seems to get better, and then other days worse. Or maybe it’s a relationship—this person at work who drives you nuts, that annoying neighbor who allows his dog go to the bathroom in your yard, the kid at school who likes to pick on you and make fun of you. Or maybe it’s a strained or broken relationship in your own family, one you’ve cried about and prayed about and tried numerous times to fix, and yet still isn’t better. We all have them, don’t we, thorns in our lives, things that bring us suffering and pain, things that bring us headaches and heartaches and sleepless nights?
But why? Why would God allow such a thing to come into Paul’s life? Why would God allow such things to come into our lives? Paul tells us why in v. 7: “To keep me from becoming conceited….” Actually in the original text Paul makes that statement twice: once at the beginning of v. 7 and then again at the end of the verse. He does that for the sake of emphasis, to make sure his readers didn’t miss it. The reason God allowed this thorn to come into his life was to keep him from becoming conceited. Paul was tempted to become conceited? Paul was tempted to boast or brag? Yes, Paul was a sinner too. He struggled with sin and temptation just like we do. Here he shares with us one of his weaknesses, that he had a problem with pride.
Maybe that’s another lesson we can learn from Paul, to be honest our sins, about our weaknesses, about our own pride and conceit. You and I can be pretty conceited, and we have never seen what Paul saw. You and I like to boast and brag and we have never seen the glory and beauty and majesty of heaven. We like to brag about ourselves and our accomplishments. Look at me. Look at what a great baseball player I am. I hit two homeruns in one game. Look at me. Look at what a great salesperson I am. I earned the salesperson of the year award 3 years in a row. Look at me. Look at all the money I make. Look at the house I live in. Look at the car I drive. We boast and brag and lift ourselves up, as if we’re somehow better than others.
And how easy it is, then, for us to do the same thing when it comes to God and our relationship with God! “Hey, God, look at me. I’m a pretty good person, a lot better than some other people I know.” Or maybe we start thinking of ourselves as being so good that we don’t really need a Savior. “Repent? I don’t need to repent of my sins. God will accept me just the way I am.” Or maybe we think we’re so strong that we really don’t need God in our lives. We don’t need to be in worship. We don’t need to be in God’s Word. We don’t need God’s help and guidance and direction day by day. We can handle it just fine on our own.”
And then along comes a thorn, along comes trouble, along comes heartache and suffering and loss, and suddenly we realize how weak we really are. We can’t do it on our own. We need God’s help. We need his comfort. We need his love. We need his forgiveness. We need his peace. We need his strength, or we would be lost. That’s why God allows thorns to come into our lives: to keep us humble; to remind us of our weakness; to remind us that we are weak, frail, sinful human beings; and without him we would be lost forever.
There’s a saying that goes: sometimes God has to put us flat on our backs, so that we finally look up to him. That saying ties in nicely with the second main point in these verses. You see, God doesn’t allow thorns to come into our lives because he enjoys watching us eat humble pie. No, God allows thorns to come into our lives so that we won’t rely on ourselves and our own strength, but so that we’ll look to him.
Let’s listen again as God taught Paul this lesson:
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.(vv. 8-10)
Obviously, Paul didn’t like this thorn in his flesh. He didn’t enjoy the pain and suffering it brought into his life. He felt it was a hindrance to him and the work he was doing for the Lord. So he took it to the Lord in prayer. Three times, he says, he pleaded with the Lord to take it away. And the Lord said, “No. No, Paul, I’m not going to take it away. I want you to remember that you are weak so that you always rely on me and my grace. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
God’s grace is his undeserved love. God’s grace is the love that he has shown weak and helpless sinners like us, people who are not deserving of his mercy and forgiveness. God’s grace is the love he showed in sending his own Son to be our Savior. God’s grace is the love that Jesus showed when he allowed a group of soldiers to plant a crown of thorns on his head and drive nails through his hands and feet. God’s grace is the love Jesus showed when he carried all of our weaknesses and all of our sins to the cross and took them all away with his holy, precious blood.
And it is God’s grace that makes us strong. When we give up on ourselves and our own ability to save ourselves and we trust in God’s grace to us in Christ, then we are strong, strong enough not to perish but have everlasting life. When we humbly admit our weaknesses and our sins before God and repent and look to Jesus for forgiveness, then we are strong, strong and whole and forgiven in the eyes of God. When we give up on ourselves and our own strength and look to God for help and rely on his grace, then we are strong. Then we have the patience and endurance and peace we need to handle the problems and heartaches and thorns that come into our lives. This is the power God gives to his people—not some mystical or supernatural power he bestows by zapping us with a laser beam from heaven or waving a magic wand over our heads. God gives us his power by reminding us of his grace, his undeserved and amazing love.
And where is it that we hear about God’s grace? Right here in his Word and in his Sacrament. Here we are reminded over and over again of God’s tremendous love for us. Here we are reminded that he loved us before the creation of the world. Here we are reminded of the tremendous sacrifice he made for us to save our souls from death. Here we are reminded of his forgiving love, even though we have fallen again. Here we are reminded of his faithful love, that he always keeps his promises. Here we are reminded that he will continue to watch over us and keep us in his care until one day he brings us safely to our heavenly home.
How much you and I need to be here! How much we need to hear God’s Word and receive his sacrament! How much we need to be in God’s Word on a daily basis! Here is where God reminds us of his love and where he helps us to find strength in his grace.
I’d like to close this morning with a little story, a story about a sheep that liked to wander. There was a shepherd who had a flock of sheep, and there was one particular sheep that always liked to wander off on its own. Almost everyday it seems this sheep would wander off and get lost, and every day the shepherd would have to leave the rest of the flock and go searching it. Things went on that way for months. Finally, one day the shepherd decided to break one of the sheep’s legs. He didn’t do it because he was angry at the sheep, but because he cared about it. He didn’t want the sheep to continue wandering off. What if it got lost once and he couldn’t find it? What if it fell into a ravine and got hurt? What if it was attacked by a mountain lion or a pack of wolves and killed? And guess what? Now that this sheep had a broken leg, it didn’t wander away anymore. It always stayed close to the shepherd.
So are you telling me, Pastor Bentz, that God would actually break the leg of one of his sheep, one of his people? No, but he might allow us to have a broken leg for a while, or a broken relationship, or a broken heart. He may allow a thorn to come into our lives to keep us humble and to teach us an important lesson: not to rely on ourselves and our own strength, but to rely on him and look to him for strength. Find your strength in God’s grace. Amen.