Thorns

Introduction

Well, good morning once again, everyone. Good morning. It’s good to see you this morning. It’s good to be together to worship God. It’s been a wonderful day of worship and praise unto God. I want to thank all of our brothers who have taken part and helping us in our worship. And I definitely want to thank Brother Tony for helping me get my slides together. Because I had made a mistake on them earlier, so they’re all ready to go now. And I appreciate, appreciate Brother Tony. Also want to say I appreciate this church. We’ve been here now, going on a couple of months, and it’s just been wonderful. It’s been wonderful. You’ve been so wonderful to us. You’ve blessed us. We love you. We feel very grateful to be here.

This is a wonderful place to preach. It’s wonderful people to preach to. People who love the Bible, they love Jesus, they want to do what’s right and go to heaven. We have wonderful shepherds, men who are leading us and wonderful deacons. And I just want you to know my family and I are thankful. We’re finally getting settled into the house.

So soon we’ll start having folks over. But that’s a process, but uh things are going well, and we give God the glory. We give God the glory for that. Thank you so much. Want to go ahead and jump into our lesson, and I want to go back to where Brother John read to us from, uh, read to us from in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, please. 2 Corinthians chapter 12, and I want to pick up with verse 7. Verse 7, please. Where the apostle Paul goes on to say, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself. There was giving me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself.

Concerning this, I implore the Lord three times that it might leave me. And he has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you for powers perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties for Christ’s sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. I want to ask you to ponder on those verses for just a moment or two. I submit to you that those are some very interesting and intriguing verses we find in the Word of God. They are puzzling and they are perplexing. In fact, out of all the things Paul writes in the Bible, they may be among the most puzzling and perplexing.

I mean, notice carefully what Paul is telling us in those verses. Notice how in those verses, Paul is not telling us about a church or about an individual Christian that he knows. Instead, he’s telling us about himself.

In fact, notice how he says that he was suffering from a thorn.

Some translations may say that he had a thorn in the flesh. What does that mean? What does Paul mean when he says he had a thorn in the flesh? Well, please understand that when Paul talks about having a thorn in the flesh, he’s not referring to those little stickers that you may have prick your finger when you’re out digging in your garden. He’s not talking about a little prick in his finger or in his foot. Instead, he’s talking about a stake. He’s talking about a stake that was piercing through him. He’s talking about going through something in his life that was bringing him immense pain and agony. Something that was really irritating him, something that was pummeling and even beating him down, if you will. That’s what Paul means when he talks about having a thorn.

And let me just ask you do you have that? Do you have that right now in your life? Right now in your life, do you have a thorn? Have you ever had a thorn? Have you ever had something that buffeted you? Have you ever had something that tormented you? Have you ever had something that beat you down and made you feel miserable? I’m willing to guess that we’ve all probably had that before, right? We all have been like Paul and we’ve had to cope with personal thorns. In fact, while battling our thorns, maybe we found ourselves doing something that a lot of people do when they get thorns, and that is asking the question of why. Why? Why am I going through this? Why am I facing this?

1. Thorns Should Be Expected

Why am I suffering right now in my life? It is not uncommon, brothers and sisters. For us to ask those kind of questions whenever we start battling thorns. And I believe that from this chapter, we learn a lot of powerful lessons that can help us. For example, one of the lessons I think we learn about thorns from this particular chapter is number one, we learn from this chapter that thorns should be expected. They should be expected. They should be expected even for Christians. Just because we are Christians and followers of Jesus, that doesn’t mean we won’t get thorns. That doesn’t mean we won’t have problems. That doesn’t mean that we are immune from periods of suffering in this life. The apostle Paul certainly wasn’t immune from that, right?

I mean, think about it. Even though he’s an apostle, there are no apostles in this room right now. Paul’s an apostle. Even though he’s an apostle, someone who was handpicked by Jesus to be a special ambassador of Jesus, even though he was directly inspired by the Holy Spirit, and he contributed to at least 13 books of the New Testament, even though he preached the gospel throughout the world and planted churches all over the place, even though he could perform miracles and had the power to impart miraculous gifts. Even though Paul had accomplished so much as an apostle, notice he still had to receive pain from a thorn.

What was Paul’s thorn? And there are whole hosts of answers that have been given to that question. For example, for some, they say this thorn could have been some health problem Paul was facing, maybe bad eyesight. And others say, well, it represented an intense level of persecution he was facing in his life. And still others say, well, it was some sinful temptation he was struggling with. And still others say, well, maybe it’s anxiety or it’s depression he was battling. You read 10 different commentaries. And it’s very likely you’re going to get 10 different answers. But here’s the truth about the matter. The truth is we don’t know. We don’t know. We don’t know exactly what Paul’s thorn was because the Bible doesn’t tell us. The Holy Spirit doesn’t tell us.

The Apostle Paul doesn’t tell us. The Apostle Paul doesn’t tell us exactly what is causing him misery and pain. And anything we try to come up with today, anything you try to suggest to me in the lobby after this, after this sermon, it’s gonna be mere speculation. It’s gonna be a guess. It’s gonna be your opinion. We don’t know what his thorn was. In fact, us not knowing that is probably a good thing. I mean, think about it, since we don’t know exactly what Paul’s thorn was. You know what we can’t do today? We can’t sit here and compare our thorns to his.

But but that’s not as bad as the problems that I’m facing in my life. Or Paul may have been sick with this, but you know what? I’m sick with that. Or Paul may have been discouraged by that, but that’s nothing compared to what I have been discouraged by. You see, since Paul doesn’t tell us exactly what his thorn was, we can’t sit here and compare our problems and our thorns to his. All we can do is accept the fact that as Christians, from time to time in this life, we’re gonna have to deal with them. We’re gonna have to deal with thorns. It doesn’t matter who we are this morning. It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been Christians. It doesn’t matter if we’re rich or poor, educated or uneducated.

It doesn’t matter what the color of our skin is, it doesn’t even matter what stage we’re at in life. We’re all gonna have to battle thorns. We’re all gonna have to battle thorns from time to time in this life. It may be a health thorn, it may be a cancer thorn, a diabetes thorn, or an arthritis thorn, an asthma thorn. It may be a money thorn, it may be a spiritual struggle thorn, it may be a depression thorn, or an anxiety thorn, it may be a persecution for your faith thorn, or an unforgiving heart thorn, or marriage thorn, or an unfaithful child, or prodigal child thorn, or maybe it’s a somebody getting on your nerves thorn. Maybe it is a thorn where there’s somebody on your job, or somebody in your family, or somebody even in the church that is about to cause you to lose your coup and lose your temper, and you are this close to telling them what’s on your mind and telling them something that’s not very Christ like.

2. Our Thorns Should Draw Us Closer to God

There are a whole bunch of examples we could give, but the point’s the same. The point is, thorns in this life are inevitable. They are gonna take place. None of us are immune from getting thorns. In fact, instead of allowing our thorns to drive us further and further away from God, a second lesson I think we learn from Paul’s thorn here is we learned that our thorns should actually draw us closer to God. They shouldn’t drive us further and further away from God. No, they should draw us closer to God. And we see that back in the text. Go back to chapter 12, please. And look again in verse 7. We’re just gonna work our way through this text. And in verse 7, Paul says this again, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations.

For this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me to keep me from exalting myself concerning this, concerning this thorn, Paul says, I implore the Lord three times that it might leave me. Now there are a couple of very important observations that I want us to make from these two verses. First, I want you to notice how when it came to this thorn that Paul had in his life, notice how he didn’t blame God. You see that? He didn’t blame God. He didn’t do like like so many people do in our time today. And I asked the question of, God, why’d you do this to me? God, why are you punishing me?

God, why did you give me this problem? Paul doesn’t blame God for his throne instead, for his for his thorn. Instead, notice. He blamed the devil. He blames Satan. He called his thorn a messenger of Satan. I find that to be very interesting. You know why? Because so often in our time today, whenever we face problems, whenever we face thorns in life, the devil is the last person we want to blame for anything. We don’t want to blame the devil for anything. We’ll lay the blame at the feet of everybody under the sun, except the one who is described in the Bible as our most fierce and vicious enemy. We’ll blame society, we’ll blame culture, we’ll blame the government, we’ll blame our spouse, we’ll blame our kids, we’ll blame the elders, we blame the preacher, we’ll blame a brother or sister in the church, we’ll even blame God so often we blame everybody under the sun except the devil.

But Paul doesn’t do that. Paul doesn’t blame God for his throne, for his thorn. Instead, he actually drew closer to God as a result of it. He actually prayed to God three times. And he asked God. No, rather he begged to help him. He drew closer to God as a result of this thorn. The question is, what about us? What about us? What about me? And what about you? Whenever we get thorns in this life, what do we do? How do we respond? Do we sit back and blame God? Do we get angry with God? Do we get angry with the one who loved us so much that he took care of our greatest thorn 2,000 years ago when he gave his son at the cross?

Do we blame God for our thorns? Or, like Paul, do we put all our faith and trust in God? Or do we turn to God first? Or do we beg God to help us and even use his power however he sees fit to remove our thorn? That’s what the Bible tells us to do. And I’m going to take you to a couple of passages. I’m going to 1 Peter chapter 5, please. In 1 Peter chapter 5, Peter here is writing to Christians who were battling some thorns. Christians who were suffering. That’s what 1 Peter is about. It’s about suffering. It’s about Christians who were suffering for their faith in the first century and how to get through that and keep going for the Lord. And Peter tells them in 1 Peter chapter 5, in 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 6.

In verse 6, he says, Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all, notice not some, not 50%, not 80%, not even just 99%. No, he says, you cast all of your anxiety or your care on him because he cares for you. That’s how you get through thorns. You take them to God. You trust that God cares about you, that God loves you. You pray to God about these things. That’s what Peter says. And Paul said it as well in the book of Philippians, please, in Philippians chapter 4. Over in the book of Philippians, chapter 4, and Paul is writing this epistle from a jail cell. He is suffering unjustly in his life. Just because he’s a preacher of the gospel, he is imprisoned in Rome, and yet he says in Philippians chapter 4 and in verse number 6, verse 6, be anxious for nothing.

But in everything, not just some things, everything, Paul says. In everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the result of that is you have peace. Because you know you’ve taken it to God, and God can handle it. The peace of God which surpasses all comprehension regards your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Notice how in both of these sections of Scripture we see exactly what we need to do whenever we start facing thorns. We see that whenever we start facing thorns in this life, we don’t need to blame God. Instead, we need to turn to God. We need to lean on God. We need to fully depend upon God and pray to him and begin to help us.

3. God Won’t Always Remove Them

We need to understand what prayer is really all about. We need to understand that prayer is not some last ditch effort that we put into practice whenever we don’t know what else to do. Instead, it is the mechanism God has given us to pour our hearts out to him and to show dependence upon him and to beg him to help us because we know he cares about the problems that we’re facing. That’s what we learn from 2 Corinthians chapter 12. We learn that our thorns should not draw us further away from God. Instead, they should draw us closer to God. We need to pray to God about our thorns. But as we do that, we need to understand thirdly that God won’t always remove them. That’s right, God will not always remove our thorns.

And we see that going back to the text. In 2 Corinthians chapter 12, going back to verse 9, after Paul says he prayed about this three times. Three times, Paul says, I prayed that God would take it from me. And in verse 9, this is how God responded. God has said to me, He has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected and weakness. Notice how even though Paul, an apostle, prayed to God three times about this thorn. Even though he was persistent and begging God to remove it from his life, God did not do it. God did not give him what he asked for. God responded to a prayer request from Paul by saying no. He said, No, my grace is sufficient for you.

What are we to do with that? What are we to make of that? What are we to make of God saying no to a prayer request from the great apostle Paul? Well, there are a couple of things I think we need to say about that. First, from this, I think we clearly see that when it comes to us praying to God, we need to understand that God is not like the big grandpa sitting in a rocking chair who just can’t say no. Now, there may be some grandpa’s like that in the audience, but it ain’t God. God ain’t like that when it comes to prayer. Don’t misunderstand. There are times when God will say yes. There are times when God will say yes to our prayers.

There are times when God will give us exactly what we want when we pray, but there are other times when he won’t do that. There are other times when he won’t say yes. There are other times when he won’t take our thorns away. Instead, he will allow them to stay right where they are. That’s exactly what goes on in the life of Paul on that occasion. And that also went on with Jesus, right? Jesus, he prayed three times in the garden that God would remove a thorn, that God would remove the cup of suffering. God, there’s another way. Let it come to pass. How did God respond to that? By saying no. He said no to Jesus. He didn’t give Jesus what he wanted, but he gave him what he needed to endure the cross.

God said no to Paul. God said no to Jesus. And from that, again, we learn something about prayer. From that, we see that when we pray to God about our thorns, we need to just trust God. We need to trust God. We need to trust that no matter how he responds to our request, it’s going to be in our best interest. It’s going to be for his glory. It’s going to be for our good and for our benefit, even if it doesn’t work out in the way we desire. And I think a great place to go to back this up is in the book of Proverbs. Some of my favorite verses in the Bible are found in Proverbs chapter 3. What you find in Proverbs 3 are commonly referred to as the verses for any season.

You can read these verses at a wedding. You can read them at a funeral. You can read them when a baby’s born. These verses apply to every situation in life. In Proverbs chapter 3 and in verse number 5, in verse 5, Solomon says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding in all your ways, not just some, in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he’ll make your path straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones. You see what Solomon is telling us to do there. Notice how one of the keys to spiritual success, one of the keys to staying on the path of righteousness and being content in whatever circumstance you find yourself in in life is trusting God.

4. Our Thorns Can Actually Help Us

Is praying with a mindset like Paul and having a mindset like Jesus is trusting God when life is going good and it’s full of roses and sunshine days, and also trusting him when life is going bad. And we’re dealing with thorns, and we pray to God, and he decides to let them stay. From this text in 2 Corinthians 12, we see that when we pray about our thorns, God won’t always remove them. He won’t always take them away. And one reason why he won’t always take them away is because he knows they can help us. That’s right, our thorns can actually help us. And I want to go back to the text one more time to see this in the text. Going back to 2 Corinthians 12, one more time.

Let’s read it again. For Paul says in verse 7, 2 Corinthians 12 and verse 7, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason to keep me from exalting myself, there is given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me to keep me from exalting myself. Concerning this, I implore the Lord three times that it might leave me, and he has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, Paul says, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I’m well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties for Christ’s sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong.

While God is certainly capable of removing any and every thorn we have in our life, sometimes he will let them stay right where they are because he wants to use them.

We need to put all of this in the context of the chapter. You see, in the context of this chapter and an effort to defend his apostleship, Paul begins this section by talking about an amazing vision he was blessed to see. He talks about a time when he was caught up in the heaven. And he was able to hear inexpressible words. He was able to hear words that are not allowed to be spoken by men on this earth. He was given this amazing privilege by God, but with that privilege came the danger of pride. Pride. Paul says that if he was not careful, because of all he had seen and accomplished as an apostle, he could have been filled with pride.

He could have developed an attitude of superiority when comparing himself to other Christians. That was a real danger that Paul had in his life, but God helped him with that. God helped him avoid that pitfall by refusing to take away his thorn. You see, by refusing to take away Paul’s thorn, Paul says he understood that God was helping him. God was blessing him. God was actually using that thorn to spiritually discipline him and make him more dependent upon him and keep him humble. God was using that thorn for Paul’s benefit spiritually. And Paul was okay with that. Paul was content with that. Paul says he even celebrated that. He rejoiced in that and was satisfied with that. Instead of focusing on all the bad things that came from his thorn, instead of focusing on the pain and the agony, he decided to focus on the good things.

He decided to focus on how God was using that thorn to help him in his life. The question is, is what about us? What about me and what about you? How do we view our thorns? How do we see the thorns that we get in life from time to time? I mean, do we challenge ourselves to see the benefits of our thorns? For example, when it comes to that financial thorn? Do we challenge ourselves to see how that might be there still because it’s helping us become better stewards of our money? Or maybe it’s there to help us become even more grateful when God blesses us with something better in the future? And what about that co-worker or that brother in the church that’s getting on our nerves thorn?

How do we see that thorn? Do we see how that actually might be there to help us become more patient and more long-suffering and more disciplined and to develop a heart that is more like Jesus? And what about that health thorn? How do we see that health thorn that still may be there in our lives? Do we see how that could actually still be there because it’s producing in us endurance? And it is helping us learn how to lean on God more and how it is helping us better understand and appreciate our mortality and how we’re not self-sufficient, but we need God. We need God every day, all the time. And then what about that internal family thorn we may have? How do we view that thorn?

Do we allow that thorn to teach us how to be more forgiving and how to be more compassionate? And maybe even how to love people who are hard to love at times. The kind of love that Jesus had towards us and demonstrated towards us when he died on the cross for our sins. There are a whole host of examples I could give you this morning. But here’s the point. The point is, while our thorns may be painful, while they may hurt, while they may be frustrating and irritating and really bring us down in our lives, God can still use them. He can use them.

Conclusion

And to go to heaven. These are just a few lessons we learn about thorns from this chapter. And as we get ready to wrap up this lesson, I just want to close by asking you again do you have that? You have a thorn right now in your life? If so, what is it? What is it? Is it the thorn of sin? Do you have the thorn of sin in your life right now? If so, then I want you to know something, okay? I want you to know that out of all the thorns that we’ve talked about this morning, that thorn, the thorn of sin, is one that God will remove from your life right now. He may not remove that cancer thorn from your life right now.

Or that financial thorn from your life right now, but he will remove the thorn of sin from your life right now. But for that to take place, you got to come to him on his terms. You have to obey him. If you’re not a Christian, you got to obey the gospel. You have to believe in his son. You got to have faith that his son is the Lord, and you got to confess that before these witnesses, and you got to repent of your sins, you got to turn away from your sins, and then you must be baptized in water for the forgiveness of your sins. If you will do those things, God will remove the thorn of sin from your life and you will become a New Testament Christian.

And if you have done those things, but you haven’t been living right, you got the thorn of sin in your life again. If you will repent and ask God to forgive you, he will remove that thorn once again. Is there anyone here who needs help? Who needs to come to God so he can remove the greatest thorn you could ever have, the worst thorn you could ever have, the thorn of sin. If we can help you with that, this song is for you. Come to the front. Let’s stand. Let’s sing.