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Jonathan Griffiths: When we examine the storyline of the Bible, we discover a wonderful pattern with respect to the way in which God expresses and reveals and works his power. He delights to do so, we discover in and through human weakness. We might say that his power is made perfect in weakness.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. I'm Steve Hiller. Glad that you are with us today. And Jonathan, that seems like that would be a disconnect. But in weakness, God's power is made perfect. But yet this is something that the Apostle Paul seemed to write about with with some sense of frequency. Why do you think that's the case?

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, I think it's the case because it was his own experience that the Lord allowed him to know and walk through and sometimes endure through his ministry. But in a more fundamental sense, you know, this goes back to the Lord Jesus Christ and his work on the cross because what it what what is the most wonderful thing that's ever happened in all the history of the world? It is God sending his son to die for us. How did God demonstrate his power over sin and death and hell? It is through giving his son to die for us.

But the moment of the death of the son of God on Calvary's tree, it was a moment in one sense of tremendous weakness. And what we learned through that is that God expresses his strength and works his power so often through weakness. We see it at the cross. We see it in the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul. And you and I, we see it in our own lives, too. And the longer we go on in the Christian life and in Christian ministry as well, the more we discover that when we are weak, then are we strong because God's power is released through us.

And uh that's something a very wonderful truth, but a very paradoxical and surprising truth that the Apostle Paul opens up in our passage today very very helpfully.

Steve Hiller: Well, let's continue to look at that truth from 2 Corinthians chapter 11 through the first handful of verses of chapter 12. We're continuing a message entitled boasting in weaknesses. Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: When difficulties come into our lives and we face suffering and trial and weakness, we tend to assume that these things have come to us despite the best efforts of God to remove them from our experience and to keep us from them and them from us. You know, we know after all that the Lord loves us very much. We know that he is very very powerful. And we assume that he is always trying his level best to keep us out of difficulty and to guard us from feeling and experiencing any pain. But you know, that's not quite what Paul indicates here in our text.

Notice the tension again in verse 7. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh. Now the one who would guard Paul from being conceited must be the Lord himself ultimately. The Lord is at work here. And and Paul says that the the thorn was given to him. It was something that was done to him and for him. And of course, when he speaks in such terms of something that he receives by another power, something that is done to him or for him, we would normally assume he's speaking of the Lord's work, something that comes by the Lord's hand.

So it it seems right to assume that the Lord is at least allowing this to take place and has a purpose within this. But to make things more complicated, notice how Paul describes the thorn in the flesh later in verse 7. It is a messenger of Satan to harass him. And on the face of it, this all looks very very surprising. Here we have something that the Lord is at least permitting in his power and in his wisdom while at the very same time, this thing is coming from Satan. And and that right there, that is a very difficult tension to wrap our heads around and to understand.

But it is a tension that the Bible expresses to us in different forms and at different times. And if we had more time to explore this, we could do so from various places in scripture. But the Bible is very clear with us that there are opposing spiritual forces at work within the world. They are not equal forces, but they are at odds with one another. The Lord is much stronger than Satan, but Satan is at work and those two forces are present and real within our experience. In in the experience of the believer, within the work of God, in the very same situation or phenomenon, Satan can be powerfully at work seeking to cause damage and destruction while the Lord at the same time is powerfully at work seeking to fulfill his good purposes for his people and for his glory.

And with all that in mind, it's no wonder that in the midst of trial and of difficulty and of pain, you and I can be very very very confused as to what is going on. You know, we can sometimes wonder to ourselves, is this situation coming from Satan or is this part of the Lord's bigger plan? And the Bible would tell us that there is a sense in which both can be true. Both can be true. Satan is doing his worst over here to cause us agony and to bring destruction. But the sovereign Lord, our loving father, is doing something else through Satan's schemes.

He's allowing these things for a reason. And he's achieving something greater which will ultimately be for Satan's defeat. Unsurprisingly, suffering through this thorn in the flesh, Paul pleads with the Lord that he would take it away. Verse 8. Three times I pleaded with the Lord that this should leave me. Now that seems to me a very reasonable prayer. I don't know what you think. Lord, this thing in my life is causing me agony and it's causing me pain. It is distressing me. It is weighing me down. It is slowing me down. It is threatening to undermine my variability to serve you.

Please, Lord, take it away. And we assume, don't we, that the Lord would want to do that, that the Lord would have it within his will to do that, that he would plan to do that, that he would answer our prayer in the way that we've prayed it. But that's not that's not what the Lord does for Paul and it's not what the Lord does for many of us. I I pleaded with the Lord that it should leave me, said Paul. But the Lord said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. The Lord allowed Paul to face that experience of weakness and even of pain, even of suffering.

He could have taken it away, but he he didn't. And in Paul's life, the purpose of this was to keep him from becoming conceited. We see it there in verse 7 two times. The thorn in the flesh was given for a particular purpose in his life. And while the Lord was achieving that purpose within Paul's heart and life and character, he actually was not ready to take away the thorn. Now I wonder if on any level and in any sense you resonate with the Apostle Paul in this. I wonder what might be your thorn in the flesh at the present time.

I wonder if there's something in your life and your experience that you're pleading with the Lord to take away and he has not yet taken it away and you wonder why. You can hardly understand why. Perhaps you're grappling intensely with the question of why today. Now I can't answer that question for you, of course. But it is important for each of us to recognize that the Lord sometimes allows us to keep the thorn and to live with a thorn for days and weeks and months and years and even decades that he might achieve and accomplish his purposes within us.

For Paul, the thorn in the flesh was given that he might not become conceited due to the privileges that God had given him. The trial kept him down and that was what was needed in his life at that time. My grandmother used to like to tell the simple story, really the the fable of the kite that wanted to fly higher and higher. And and this kite found the string that was holding it back was a constant source of frustration and limitation. And one day, the little boy holding the string lost his grip in a strong wind and the kite momentarily flew a little bit higher up into the sky.

But you know what happens almost immediately. The kite comes fluttering down to earth. And the point of the fable is simply this. Unbeknownst to the kite, it was the thing that kept it down that actually kept it up. Without the string holding it down, it could not stay up in the air. For Paul, the thorn in the flesh kept him down. But as he dealt with the danger of conceit in his life and as that trial was doing its work within him, that trial which kept him down was actually keeping him up. It kept him functional in ministry and in service.

Now I don't know what the trial may be that could be keeping you down at the moment. But let me invite you to consider that in the Lord's wisdom, it may actually be the thing that is keeping you up and enabling you to grow and to serve. The Lord in his wisdom sometimes allows his servants to face weakness, but secondly and more briefly within all this, the Lord's grace is sufficient for our weaknesses. Verse 8 again three times. I pleaded with the Lord about this that it should leave me. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you.

Now that point is very very simple, but it is wonderfully true and it's deeply important. The Lord's grace is sufficient for you and for me in whatever situation we may face, for whatever trial we may be called to endure. Paul wanted the problem taken away understandably enough and the Lord didn't do that, but instead told him that he himself was enough for Paul in the midst of the problem. His grace was sufficient. And friends, we need to learn and understand and really believe that the Lord is enough for us. Whatever we face, whatever we are called upon to endure.

The world has changed a little bit, but in the old days when you went on a long journey, one of the key things you had to figure out ahead of time was how much money, how much currency you needed to take with you. I remember 20 years ago going and buying travelers checks, remember those, for long trips and trying just to estimate how much would be needed. And and the concern is always this, you know, I don't want to buy too much, but will I have enough resources to see me through the whole trip for the whole time?

If I'm too conservative in my estimates, could I be caught short? When we are called upon to walk through deep trial and acute suffering, we can sometimes wonder if we have within us enough resources to see us through the journey. Yeah, how much can I take? How much more of this can I endure? My energy and my emotional and spiritual strength are all spent now. Will I have the resources to see me through or will I run dry? And the Lord says here to Paul and to us, the riches of my grace are enough and more than enough to see you through the journey through this life and through this trial.

My friend Charles Price tells the story and he he tells the story of an elderly believer who had a favorite saying and the saying was this. For this, I have Jesus. And this elderly man, he repeated that little saying in times of challenge and of crisis, whatever the situation. For this, I have Jesus. And he had this little saying printed on little yellow bookmarks, velvet bookmarks that he used to give away to others who he thought could be encouraged by them. Now Charles tells of how he shared about that at an event in the UK where he was preaching a conference many years ago.

And when he got home from the conference, he received a letter from a lady who had heard him preach and wanted to share her story with him. And and and this is what she wrote. I'm just reading from her letter here. Two years ago, a friend of mine wrote to me and in the envelope with her letter, she had put a yellow velvet bookmark which said, for this I have Jesus. I I thought that's nice and I placed it down on the table. The next morning, a policeman came to my door and asked for me to go with him to the hospital because my husband was in a vehicle accident.

When I got to the hospital, he had died. I had to identify his body and then go to school to pick up our two children and bring them home. It was the worst day of our lives. But when I got home, there on the table left from the day before was this little yellow velvet bookmark. For this, I have Jesus. I cannot tell you what those words have meant for me these last two years. So much so that we have written it on my husband's tombstone. For this, we have Jesus. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this that it should leave me.

But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. I wonder if you know that. I wonder if you believe it today. And I wonder if you are living it. You see, nothing within us is sufficient for the difficulties we face today nor for the trials we will yet face tomorrow. But the Lord's grace truly is. And so for this, I have Jesus.

Steve Hiller: Well, you're listening to Jonathan Griffiths here on Encounter the Truth. And we'll get back to the teaching in just a moment. But we'd like to extend a special invitation to all our listeners in the greater Toronto area. On Monday evening, October 19th, Jonathan will be hosting a special event for listeners at Tyndale University in Toronto. You can get more information at our website encounterthetruth.org. Enjoy a warm evening of fellowship with other Encounter the Truth listeners, get encouragement your walk with Christ, and learn more about the reach and impact of the ministry. That's Monday evening, October 19th at Tyndale University in Toronto.

Again, get all the details and register at encounterthetruth.org. Let's get back to the message. Again, here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: The Lord's grace is sufficient for our weakness. And more than that, next point, the Lord's power is made perfect in weakness. That's the next key element. You see it there in verse 9. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Now the Lord here is saying something about Paul and his experience, no doubt about that. But more significantly, he is saying something profound about the way in which he delights to work his power. When we examine the storyline of the Bible, we discover a wonderful pattern with respect to the way in which God expresses and reveals and works his power.

He delights to do so, we discover in and through human weakness. And we could think of story after story throughout the Old Testament. I mean, read the Old Testament and think of this phenomenon. We could think of Moses, the man of stuttering speech sent to the most powerful man in the world to call for the release of the Israelites. We think of David, the shepherd boy with a a sling and a stone taking down the giant who threatened the people of God. We think of the young maiden, the young peasant girl miraculously with child bearing the son of God.

We think of Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth, despised and rejected, sent to a cross of shame, triumphing over the powers of evil, defeating Satan and snatching sinners from hell for heaven. We think of the Messiah dead in a tomb raised to life again on the third day. Oh yes, the Lord delights to work his power through weakness. In fact, we we might say that his his power works best right there. It it works most perfectly there. We might say that his power is made perfect in weakness. Some among us, many among us will know the name Chuck Swindoll.

Chuck is a well-known and well-loved Bible teacher who's had a really frankly massive global influence through his teaching ministry over the years, retired from his pastorate. But I had the privilege of of hearing him speak at a breakfast event a few months ago where he reflected a little on his experience and his years of ministry. And it was quite moving actually to hear him share about his childhood and his early years. He shared how he was actually not the favorite child of his parents and how they sort of let him know it, how in many ways he lived in the shadow of his siblings who who seemed to receive all the affection and the attention.

He told of how as a young person, he had a a stutter that was so severe he could barely finish a complete sentence at school. And yet the Lord decided to use him, to make his power perfect in and through him. And the impact of course globally has been remarkable. The Apostle Paul knows the nature of the power of God. He knows personally and experientially that God's power is made perfect in and through weakness. He he knows it because he has faced the reality of reaching the end of himself and finding that another power has then kicked in, a greater power and a more wonderful power, the power of the living God himself.

I wonder if you've ever found that. I wonder if you've ever experienced it. Your strength was gone, but the Lord's power prevailed in you and through you. You see, the Lord is willing and able to allow us to reach the end of our own power that we might in the midst of that uncomfortable experience discover his power and serve in his power and minister in his power and not our own. That's the very place where his power is made perfect. I I think I've mentioned once before that we've had difficulty in our neighborhood over recent years with lots of power outages.

We counted 12 in in a single year a couple of years ago. And and lots of people have been installing automatic backup generators where where we live in our in our village, you know, you don't have water if your well pump has no power. So blackouts become unamusing fairly quickly. And anyway, so these automatic systems have become quite popular. And the way they work is, you know, they're plumbed into the gas line so they have a source of energy on tap. And when the mains power goes out, you have a few uncomfortable seconds when it goes completely dark, but then the backup generator fires up and the house has new power from a new source.

But the key thing for it to kick in is that the mains power has to die first. It's got to be cut right off. For you and me to know the perfected power of God within our lives, we have to actually know the experience of our own power going out. We've actually got to reach the end of our own strength. And we get right there and there's this moment of fear because all is dark. And we think this is a disaster. But then the other source, the greater source actually kicks in. We would never have seen or recognized the power from the other source if our main supply remained active and sufficient.

But it never does, of course. We do reach the end of ourselves, don't we? And the Lord sometimes allows us to reach that point that his power might be released in us and through us and in that sense reach its aim, be perfected, do what the Lord delights to see it do. I wonder if you've reached that point and if you've experienced his power at work within power and strength to endure and to serve even when by any human reckoning, you should have nothing left at all. Knowing that God's power is made perfect in weakness, there is one key implication for all of this.

And with this, we close. Therefore, we boast in our weakness. Middle of verse 9. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Do you see how Paul has kind of turned the tables here? In in Corinth, they boast of strength, wealth, success, connection. They pity weakness and they try to avoid it. But what does Paul do? He boasts in it. Our world despises weakness and trial and tries all that it can to avoid it and then hide it. But Paul has learned a different attitude and a different approach.

He has learned that those things which we naturally view as our foes, trial, infirmity, inability, pain, difficulty, those very things are actually on some level our friends. The things that keep us down actually keep us up. The things that highlight our weakness actually become conduits for the Lord's strength to be released. Paul has learned not to be ashamed of those things, but to boast in them. Not that he enjoys them, not that he pretends they are pleasant or fun. None of that. It is simply that he has learned that the place of weakness and sometimes of pain, the the place of frailty and of dependency, that is the very place where the power of God kicks in.

And the Lord does his astounding work. Friends, what is your thorn? Your trial, your difficulty that the Lord might use in your life to release his own power to perfect his power within you. I wonder what it is. May the Lord give you his all sufficient grace not only to survive it, but to boast in it. And may he give you the joy of seeing him at work powerfully within it.

Steve Hiller: Wrapping up our message, boasting in weaknesses. Jonathan Griffiths here on Encounter the Truth. If you ever want to go back and listen to a message again, you can do that at our website encounterthetruth.org. Well, Encounter the Truth is listener supported and we depend on your generosity to continue to bring you Jonathan's teaching each day. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a book called Gentle and Lowly. It's written by Dane Ortlund. And Jonathan, who is this book for?

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, Steve, this book is for anyone who feels that God is frowning down upon them from heaven, anyone who feels that God is disappointed with them for their failures in the Christian life, for anyone who feels that they need to prove themselves to God or or in their way into his favor. Gentle and lowly is a beautiful reminder that God loves us, that he's given his son for our redemption, that he reaches out to us in mercy and grace through the gospel, that he is compassionate toward us, and that the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed gentle and lowly of heart.

And and I think hearing these things, even if we know that they're true, even if we've read them before in the scriptures, being reminded in such a helpful way as Dane Ortlund reminds us in such a helpful way will do our heart and soul good. And I think for the one who is fearful and imagining that God is indeed frowning upon them, this will be such a help and such an encouragement. And I hope you can take all of it.

Steve Hiller: Well, we want to send you a copy of this book Gentle and Lowly is our way of saying thank you for your financial support this month. Give online at encounterthetruth.org or when you call 1 833 99 Truth. That's 1 833 998 7884 or encounterthetruth.org. You can also write us at Encounter the Truth, PO Box 5513, Ottawa, Ontario K2C 3M1. Or in the US at Encounter the Truth, 215 North Arlington Heights Road, Suite 102, Arlington Heights, Illinois 60004. For producer Mark Bretta and our Bible teacher Jonathan Griffiths, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening and I hope you'll join us next time.