2 Corinthians 12:1-10

God’s grace is sufficient.

Are you weak or are you strong? Are you a weak Christian or are you a strong Christian? Which do you want to be known as? Do you want people to know that you are a mighty prayer warrior? Do you want people to know that you serve God faithfully, busily going about the work of the church? Do you want people to know that you have a good solid understanding of doctrine and theology, that you have studied long and deep and can explain the Bible in complex terms?

Or do you want people to know that you are barely hanging on to the faith, that you are uncertain about more than you are sure about, that you find it tough to do what God wants you to do, that you get tired of trying to do good, that, if given your choice, in any situation, you would sin?

Are you a weak Christian or are you a strong Christian?

Paul would gladly say that he is a weak Christian. Paul, the man who went around the known world three times talking about Jesus and getting stoned and whipped for it. Paul who was thrown into prison for talking about Jesus. Paul who planted more churches in a shorter period of time than anyone, ever. Paul, the writer of almost half of the New Testament. Paul was weak, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

This is our final Sunday where we are focusing on God’s grace, though I hope that every Sunday, we hear His grace preached and we respond to His grace with amazed worship. After 6 weeks of grace, I’m hoping we’re ready for Good Friday and Easter. If we haven’t bought into God’s grace being everything and us being nothing, then Good Friday won’t be that good and Easter will be just another Sunday.

And that was just the problem that Sunday before the original Good Friday, the Sunday when Jesus road into town on a donkey. We have been praising Jesus, our Savior this morning, singing a lot of songs, being led by the Sunday School children. We have been worshipping our Lord knowing our place, that we have nothing to contribute to our salvation or to the salvation of our world. That He is the Savior, and we and our world are only saved by His death and resurrection.

But the people on the first Palm Sunday didn’t know that. Time after time, they had wanted Jesus to come in and take all their problems away. Which is exactly what He was doing, they just didn’t know it. See, they wanted Jesus to use physical strength and military strategy to save them, but for Jesus to conquer evil and free the people, they had to turn over the ownership of their lives from themselves over to Jesus. They had to admit they had nothing to contribute to their salvation, the salvation of their nation, the salvation of their souls. They had to depend only on God’s grace. And that, they were just simply unwilling to do. It was great if Jesus was coming in to make them all free, just don’t ask them to give up their lives and follow Him.

But that’s the only way to get free. It’s the only way to grow strong. It’s the only way to escape our hardships and persecutions and difficulties. To be weak.

Paul has every reason to seem strong. Look at what he did. For the past chapter, chapter 11, Paul has been talking, sarcastically, about all these great qualifications he has, all these incredible things that he’s done, stuff should make him look great. I’ve planted churches, written the Bible, I even had this amazing experience of seeing a vision of heaven, being caught up to paradise, as he explains in verse 2. But while all of these things might seem amazing and reassuring, they’re nothing to boast about. I mean, if he can see a vision of heaven, he should be able to do anything.

And actually, none of these things make him any stronger, any more sure of himself. While these experiences and accomplishments can make him think he’s strong, he’s actually weak. And he needs to be reminded of this. Verse 7:

This kind of intrigues us, doesn’t it? What was this thorn in the flesh? Was it a particular temptation that Paul struggled to conquer? Was it a family situation that made it difficult to stay focused on God? Traditionally, we understand that this thorn in the flesh was a physical disability. We understand that Paul’s eyesight was very poor, that he was not able to see very well, even to write his own name.

But whatever Paul’s thorn was, it really doesn’t matter. He had it. In fact, it helps for us not to know what Paul has, because we can kind of fill in the blank with our own thorns. We have our limitations, our failures and frustrations. We have our disabilities that keep us from doing what we want. We have enemies that really get to us. We have fears. In other words, we have weaknesses.

And just like with Paul, those weaknesses serve to remind us. I want to make sure about something, here. And Paul does, too. He says that he was given a thorn in the flesh, a weakness that dragged him down. But let’s be sure where that thorn came from. It was a messenger of Satan, Paul says. God did not give him this. God did not make him weak. God allowed this, for His purposes, but the pain, the weakness came from Satan, to torment Paul.

And, verse 8:

It’s encouraging that Paul didn’t just accept this thorn. That might seem more holy, more pure, but it’s not more human. Paul begged, pleaded with God to fix this. If it was blindness, Paul knew that Jesus had healed blind men before, so let’s ask. God can heal his blindness. And he asked three times. Begging, pleading with God to take this away, to make his life easier.

And God answered Paul’s prayer. And God said, "No." Verse 9:

We love that verse, don’t we? My grace is sufficient for you. My grace is enough.

But don’t we just want more? We love God’s grace, but we want health plus God’s grace. We want comfort plus, security plus, strength plus, certainty plus. It’s wonderful to be love by God, to have His face beaming on us, with Him being gracious and all. But we want something we can touch and see and hear. Something tangible to reinforce God’s grace, to confirm His grace. Something that will make us feel even better than just the fact that God shows His grace to us.

And we will hear the same message from God. No, you don’t actually need that tangible evidence. No, you don’t even need the healing. You don’t need the circumstances to change. You don’t need the relationship to be healed. You don’t need a higher salary. You don’t need anything, because My grace is enough.

This morning, we take everything we’ve found as we’ve heard God’s grace over the past several weeks, and pull it all together, and we find that it actually is sufficient. We forget not His benefits, that His love is higher than the sky is above the earth and that He does not treat us as our sins deserve. We turn our face toward His face, His beaming, gracious face, His eyes locked on our eyes, sending His peace to chase away the worries and grief. We stand. We stand on His grace, because in the end that’s all we have. Nothing lasts, except the grace by which we stand.

And when we know this grace and breathe this grace and live surrounded by this grace, we actually do find that it’s enough. And it surprises us, and that’s why we say this is amazing grace. Because we never would have thought that His grace is enough.

Therefore, along with Paul, we say verse 9:

Which sounds backwards, doesn’t it? We would never boast, but it’s normal, it’s natural to point to how things are going well, how we’re staying on top of things, how the business is going well, the families healthy, we’re doing okay.

And instead, we do just the opposite. We boast, gladly, about our weaknesses. We talk, openly, about our struggles. We’re not ashamed, in fact, we’re eager to share our fears, our pains. Why? Once again verse 9:

If we’re depending on how good our life is, how good our business is, how good our health is for how good we are, then we don’t really need Christ’s power, do we? We’re doing fine on our own. But what is a good business and a good healthy body compared to Christ’s power on us. All of those good situations start to pale in comparison to the power of Jesus resting on us.

That’s why, verse 10:

I know this seems impossible, to delight in weaknesses. But when we have experienced God’s grace in it’s pure form, without any distraction, without good circumstances diluting our dependence on God’s grace, then we’ll understand. When we have nothing to point to for our calm and peace besides God’s mercy, His love, now we’re living.

In fact, we’ll find that when things are going well, we start to drift away from our dependence on God’s beaming grace, and we end up missing it. There’s something wrong in our life when everything is going right. There’s something wrong, because we’re not as dependent on God’s grace. Christ’s power isn’t resting as fully on us as it could, as it should.

So, in order for His grace to be enough for us, where we don’t need anything else, we start to boast in our weakness. And they way we do that is we start to use the words, "I can’t" a whole lot more than we do right now.

We are do-it-yourselfers. To say that we can’t is to admit defeat, to give up. But that’s exactly what boasting in our weaknesses is, giving up. Throwing ourselves totally onto the grace of God, finding that it’s sufficient to hold us, it’s strong enough to carry us.

We admit, fully, openly, we are weak. Given the opportunity, we will sin every time. We not only can’t resist temptation, we actually like to be tempted. It feels good. We won’t read the Bible enough, we won’t witness enough, we will be nowhere near holy enough. We can’t. We are weak. And when we’ve been able to see this and say this, now we’re finding that God’s grace is enough. When we’re tempted, we immediately say, "I can’t fight this. I won’t win. I want this sin too much." And THAT’S when Jesus changes us and makes the temptation not tempting at all.

When we’re insulted, we know that we are so weak, we’ll never be able to handle it. We’ll either throw an insult back, or we’ll stew over the words while they eat us up. We can’t deal with it. We can’t. We’re weak. And then we see His beaming face, and it doesn’t matter what other people think of us, we just know God’s grace, and it’s okay, because His grace is enough.

When things get hard, the choices are hard, the demands are hard, the days are hard, the nights are hard, life is just hard, that’s when we say that we are soft. We can’t handle life. We’re not equipped. We’re not smart enough. We can’t. And Jesus is quick to agree, but that’s okay, because His grace is sufficient, it’s enough to carry us along. God’s grace gets us to make the right decisions, and if we make the wrong decisions, well, He uses that too, for His glory.

And when we’re persecuted, when it’s just too hard to be a Christian in full view of everybody else. When the values of this world crush our values like a little grape and it just doesn’t seem worth it to try to do the right thing, now we’re ready. And then we remember that love that is higher than the sky is above the earth, and every attraction that the world holds out for us just looks cheap. And we don’t care what anybody says, we’re staying close to that grace.

Because His grace is sufficient in our weakness, when we’re insulted, when things get hard, when we’re persecuted, when it’s just too difficult. If we’ve known God’s grace to be enough, if we’ve admitted, even boasted in our weakness and Christ’s power has rested on us, we won’t have it any other way. It will actually get easier to admit our weaknesses and become weak Christians, throwing ourselves onto God’s grace. We’ll understand better, we’ll trust more, we’ll experience and we will know that God’s grace is sufficient, that His power only grows when we can’t.