2.16.25 2 Corinthians 12:7b–10 (EHV)
7 I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me, so that I would not become arrogant. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that he would take it away from me. 9 And he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, because my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will be glad to boast all the more in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may shelter me. 10 That is why I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For whenever I am weak, then am I strong.
Thank God for the Thorns
James Earl Jones was an actor whose voice was especially renowned. It was used for Darth Vader in the Star Wars series. Did you know that he had a severe stuttering problem growing up? He practically didn’t talk at all from the 1st grade until his freshman year in high school. It wasn’t until his high school teacher had him recite poetry that he was able to start getting a handle on the situation. Don’t you love these types of stories when people have to fight through adversity in order to overcome challenges and conquer them?
In today’s text Paul doesn’t talk about conquering a challenge or overcoming it. He says the opposite, when the obstacle becomes a gift that just won’t stop giving. Paul’s obstacle was a “thorn in my flesh” that wouldn’t go away. There’s some debate as to what that thorn actually was, either bad eyesight or a stutter or something else. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. Whatever it was, he really didn’t like it. He prayed multiple times that God would take it away, but God wouldn’t.
Take a moment to yourself, and think about what that thorn might be for you? Something or someone that continues to make your life miserable . . . something that won’t go away. It could be a boss or an ex. It could be a temptation like alcohol. It could be a bad back or a sleeping problem. It could be a tendency to worry or panic. Something you just can’t get rid of, maybe something that people have made fun of you for or tagged you with.
The problem wasn’t just the thorn with Paul. He said it was being used as “a messenger of Satan to torment me.” When you have a weakness or a thorn it can take on a persona of its own. It says to you, “You’re worthless. You always mess up. You might as well give up. Why would anyone love you? You can’t do anything right.” That’s what Paul seems to be talking about here. But Paul also said that the thorn was actually given by God Himself, almost like a hand wrapped gift. “Here you go Paul.” A thorn with Satan wrapped around it, all for you. “Love, God.” The same thorn can be used differently by two different masters. Satan has it for one purpose. God has it for another.
Think of Jesus’ temptation in the desert for 40 days by Satan. Satan wanted Jesus to fall into sin. Instead, Jesus used those painful temptations as an avenue through which He could conquer Satan and resist temptation in our place, as the perfect human. Think of the cross. Satan used Judas to betray Jesus. He used the teachers of the law to condemn Him to death. He used the Roman government to crucify Jesus. But God used it all to pay for our sins.
Think of how that works with us. The devil loves to rub his nose in our sin and make fun of us for it. He wants to drive us to despair and suicide. But God’s purpose is to take it to its ultimate conclusion, where HE wants us to go - to the cross. This led Martin Luther to say,
when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!"
Luther was boldly defiant about his sin with the devil. It made him claim Christ all the more boldly.
When God wouldn’t remove Paul’s thorn, it seems that Paul tried to figure it out. He said to himself, “If God isn’t going to take this thorn away, then He must have a HIGHER purpose for it. What is it? Paul said it was “so that I would not become arrogant.” Maybe he went back to Joseph in the Old Testament. Whenever the LORD gave him a revelation, he seemed to be more than willing to share it with his brothers and parents, telling them of how they would all bow down to him someday. It seemed to maybe make him a bit arrogant with his revelations. Paul didn’t want that, so he reasoned that this painful thorn in his flesh knocked him down to size.
Think about this with your own thorn. It’s lazy and accusatory just to assume that God wants you to be miserable, as if He’s some sort of masochist who likes seeing people suffer. It’s glib and wrong just to say, “God must hate me.” He doesn’t hate you. You know that. He loves you more than your own mother ever would. Ask yourself, “What positive is God trying to do in me?” Maybe you have a tendency towards a sin that you need to be aware of, that you need extra help, extra suffering, to keep in place. It’s something worth thinking about. Now, that doesn’t mean that you will always be able to figure it out. But if you approach it from a positive aspect asking, “What good is God trying to work through this?” well then maybe you might look at your thorn a little differently.
We usually spend a lifetime trying to get RID of our thorns in life, or angry at God because of our thorns, looking back on life and saying, “Only if.” We quit jobs, get divorced, become defensive and angry because of the thorns in our lives. We say, “If only I hadn’t gotten in that accident. I never should have taken that job. I never should have dated him. I never should have moved. Then my life would be so much easier, so much better.” But you never think of it differently, that maybe you needed to have that boss. Maybe you needed that someone to tear you down. Maybe that person that you complain about is absolutely the perfect person for you exactly BECAUSE they make your life miserable. Maybe that’s exactly what you need, some misery in your life. Maybe a long lasting failure, pain and embarrassment is the only thing that will draw you to Christ and bring you to heaven.
Paul’s thorn caused him to pray more earnestly maybe than he ever had before in his life. He PLEADED with the Lord. What a GOOD thing then! When were the times you found yourself praying like you’d never prayed before? When were the times you felt most vulnerable, most dependent on God? Weren’t they when you had the persistent thorn that wouldn’t go away? When you knew you couldn’t divorce yourself from the situation? YES! That’s when it works best, just as God says it does. “My grace is sufficient for you, because my power is made perfect in weakness.” That’s when the light bulb went on for Paul. It’s all about grace.
Michael Jordan was driven to be one of the greatest basketball players because of how he went after those who questioned him. He’s not the only one who’s tried it. “When I go back to the class reunion, I’m going to show everyone what a success I am!” But more often than not, a lot of people fall flat on their faces. They come to the sad realization that many times the people weren’t all wrong about them. They don’t all make it. What then? Am I just a bound loser?
No. What did God say to Paul and to us? My grace is sufficient for you. So what if you failed? So what if you were embarrassed or humiliated? There’s nothing you can do to undo your past failures. Does that make God love you any less? Does that make you any less forgiven? You still have a God who loves you in Christ, who died for you, who paid for your sins. He doesn’t base His love for you based on whether you overcame the odds or whether you were successful or not. It’s an unconditional love of grace. Paul said, “That’s enough for me.” Grace is sufficient.
I was trying to figure out how this text really fit into the Epiphany season - a time to see the light of Christ shine out to the world. Then it came to me. The glorious thing in this text is the way that Paul RESPONDED to his thorn. He believed that God had a telos - a higher purpose for his suffering, and that changed his entire outlook. How many people let the thorns in their lives make them miserable? They become dark and disposed and angry with life? But what did Paul do with the thorn that wouldn’t go away? I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For whenever I am weak, then am I strong. His thorn made him all the more delightful! Instead of letting it bury him in darkness and shame, he gloried in it when it led him to grace.
Some of the greatest witnesses in life are those who have the greatest thorns in life and yet find God’s grace all the more sufficient for them. I think of a former member here, Mark Hayes. Even though he has lost more and more mobility over the years, he has maintained his sense of humor and thankful attitude through his ALS. Kim Stock was a quadriplegic who continued to profess his faith in spite of his severe disabilities near the end of his life. The person with Downs Syndrome who only knows happiness in Jesus. Those who have been through the ringer with difficult marriages or problems with children or bosses, who show grace and mercy like nobody else. When they still manage to cling to Jesus and His mercy through the insults and the hardships they become all the more beautiful and attractive to others in their lives because of their weaknesses.
It seems like an impossible thing to do, to become more delightful the more weak you become. But God’s grace worked a miracle in Paul, and this same God can do the same for you and through you. When we stop getting angry with God and the world over the thorns . . . when we drive ourselves to God’s grace and mercy all the more . . . that’s when the glory of God shines through the brightest. In a world of anger and bitterness, here’s someone who’s thankful, who’s grateful, who’s full of hope. Why? Because you know you’re forgiven. You know you’re loved. You know heaven is yours in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Could you be that person?
Even if you just can’t seem to respond that way, the good news is that Jesus was. He pleaded three times also, in the Garden of Gethsemane, for God to take the cup from Him. When God’s answer was no, what did Jesus do? He boldly went forth to the cross in confidence. Hebrews 12.2 says, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Yes, He clearly saw the end game of His cross. He’d have a world of forgiven sinners in the end. That’s what gave Him courage. That’s what gave Him joy in the end. It’s what enabled Him to go to the cross and speak such words of grace, even from the cross. He knows the end game He wants for you too. It’s a good one, a perfect one, in heaven, with Him.
Jennifer Grey was an actress who starred in the 80’s movie called “Dirty Dancing” with Patrick Swayze. The movie was a hit and she was a star, but later on in her life some people thought that she needed to have surgery on her nose, which had a distinctive bump to it, making it larger than normal. So she went ahead and had plastic surgery to remove the bump, but as a result she became somewhat unrecognizable, and she kind of ruined her career in the process. It wasn’t that the surgery made her ugly or anything. It was just that it made her look too normal in a sense. She lost the one thing that distinguished her.
We might tend to get rid of our own abnormalities, the things that we have been embarrassed of and hounded us, the things or the people that bother us and make us feel like failures. But maybe there’s a good reason God has allowed that in your life, why God hasn’t taken it away. Think about that the next time you are dealing with a thorn in your life, if you are dealing with a thorn right now. You want it to be gone, but then maybe you wouldn’t be you then either. Maybe for His own gracious reason God has a better answer for you, a hard “no.” If the thorn draws you closer to God, makes you more dependent on Him and His grace, then that’s something to be happy about and even boast about if it leads you back to grace. There’s not a better place you could be. God loves us enough to keep us close to him with the thorns. If God didn’t care he’d give us everything we wanted and the ship would dock in hell. Thank God when it doesn’t. Thank God for the Thorns. Amen.
