From His Heart

Speaker 1

Today on From His Heart, Pastor Jeff Shreve explains why your continuous prayer about a wound in your life is seemingly not being answered.

Speaker 2

You have a thorn in your flesh, so to speak. You have something in your life that you don't want to be there, that the Lord has allowed to come in, something that you've prayed about and prayed about and prayed about.

And the answer is, my grace is sufficient for you. I'm not taking this away.

See, so much of the time we, we push the thorn away and we say, no, I don't want this. No, I don't want this. No, I don't want this.

Speaker 1

Have you been wounded with an unwanted difficulty in your life? Have you prayed for God to take that thing away and He seems to not respond to your prayer? If that's the case for you, then you're in good company because that's exactly what happened to the Apostle Paul, who is arguably the greatest soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is from his heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve, where today he concludes this seven-message series called Soldiers of the Cross with part two of the last lesson called the Wounds of a Good Soldier. In the message today, he'll reveal three lessons that we can learn from the wounds endured by the Apostle Paul and Paul's uplifting attitude about them.

Listen. If you missed any of these seven powerful lessons so far this month, you can listen again online anytime at fromhisheart.org. Just click the Listen link there, too. You can download a free MP3 of this broadcast as well as the sermon outlines from Pastor Jeff. In fact, this series, the Soldiers of the Cross, as well as the booklet The Lord's Army, are our gifts of thanks to you for your support of any amount this month. So thank you for what you can do to help us. Just go to fromhisheart.org to make your gift today.

But first, open your Bible to 2 Corinthians, chapter 12. Here now is Pastor Jeff to explain the purpose for the wounds of a good soldier.

Speaker 2

Paul had a specific thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan that God gave to him. We don't know if this was a physical thing. We don't know if this was a spirit. It may have been both a physical thing and a spiritual thing, but it was something that was unwanted, and he wanted God to take it away.

What do we learn from Paul's thorn in the flesh? Three lessons. Lesson number one: Thorns are part of life. Weaknesses, insults, distresses, persecutions, difficulties—these are all part of life. Trouble comes, and thorns come simply because you're human. Jesus said, "In the world, you have tribulation, but be of good courage. I have overcome the world." However, thorns also come to those who are walking in disobedience to God. So, difficulties and distresses can enter your life because you're outside of the will of God. But those don't describe Paul. Paul is not in disobedience to God. What Paul is talking about here is being right with God, in the will of God, doing what God wants you to do, and still having a faith thorn in the flesh.

Thorns come to those who are walking in obedience to God. We get the wrong idea sometimes. You know, if I'm going to be right with God, I'm going to walk with God, then I'm going to see the end of all my problems. Yes, you'll see the front end of all your problems. Because all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. You're going to have difficulty in this life. Thorns are part of life.

Lesson number two: People respond to thorns in different ways. Some people get bitter when things happen to them. They get bitter, and some Christians get bitter, which wrecks and ruins their lives. Others give up. It's kind of on the lines of bitterness, but they just quit. They say, "I can't do this anymore. I quit." Some people don't get bitter or give up, but they unhappily endure what they're going through. They say, "All right, I hate this, but this is the way it is." They grit their teeth and gut it out for the next 20 years until they can die and go to heaven. That is not Paul's situation. Paul says in verse nine, "Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses." He receives those because, in the fourth category of persons, some people see the deeper meaning. Paul saw the deeper meaning. He recognized that God was at work in his thorn in the flesh.

You know, when Paul said he prayed three times, he knew how to pray. He was crying out to God, saying, "Concerning this, I entreated the Lord. I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. God, take this away from me. I don't want this. Lord, I'm serving you, and this is a hindrance to me." No doubt there were three times, three seasons where he was really praying this. The Lord gives him an answer to his prayer that changed everything for Paul.

Lesson number three: God has a purpose in the thorns. God has a purpose in the thorns. He had a purpose for Paul, and he has a purpose for you and for me. In the difficulties of life, God is a purposeful God. The apostle Paul talks about a time he went to heaven while defending his apostleship. He speaks of himself in the third person, saying, "I don't know if I had a vision of this or if I was caught up bodily or if I came out of my body to see all this and to go to heaven. I don't know. God knows. But I know that I was in paradise. I know that I was in the third heaven."

You have the atmosphere, heavens, with the clouds and the birds, and then you have space, where the stellar heavens are. Beyond space is the third heaven, where God is. He was caught up, literally, Harpazo, which is the same word as raptured. He was taken up into heaven and saw those things. This happened 14 years prior to him writing this in 57 AD, which would have been 43 AD. Paul became a Christian in 37 AD, so six years after his salvation experience, he was caught up into heaven, and he hadn't talked about it yet.

Can you imagine if you were caught up into heaven? I mean, your feet just hit back on the ground, and you're like, "Call a publisher. I gotta write a book. I need to talk about this." Paul didn't. Why? Because that's an experience that is not something that you can really verify. It's something that happened to him, something that's definitely true. But he says in verse six, "For if I do wish to boast, I shall not be foolish, for I shall be speaking the truth. But I refrain from this so that no one may credit me with more than he sees in me or hears from me." He didn't want it to be based on this experience the Lord gave him; he wanted it to be what people see in him and hear from him.

So he didn't talk about it. And you know what's pretty awesome about Paul? I think Paul is the greatest Christian who ever lived. I really do. Some can say, "Well, there were some other great Christians." Sure, there are other great Christians, but I think Paul is the greatest example of a believer in Christ. Paul had numerous experiences with the Lord Jesus where the Lord came to him and talked to him. I mean, on the road to Damascus, who has a testimony like that?

What's your testimony like? "Well, I was going on the road to Damascus to arrest and abuse Christians, and the Lord Jesus appeared to me on the road and spoke to me." That's pretty awesome. I'd be telling that everywhere, right? And Paul did tell that a lot. He shared his testimony, but he had an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. In order to be an apostle, you had to see the risen Lord Jesus Christ, and Paul did. But then he had other encounters with Jesus where Jesus would come and speak to him.

When he was in Corinth the first time, the Lord came and said, "Don't be afraid, Paul. I have many people in this city. Nobody's going to harm you." When he was getting ready to testify before the Jews, the Lord came to him and said, "Don't be afraid, Paul. I'm going to be with you." He was on the ship in Acts chapter 27, heading to Rome, and it seemed like the ship was going to go down. The Lord appeared to him and said, "Don't be afraid, Paul. I'm with you."

So he had all these experiences with the Lord. I mean, he is some kind of Christian guy, and yet he is being attacked and vilified, and his character is being run through the mud. He has to say, "Okay, Corinthians. Let me tell you about an experience that I had with the Lord. You think I'm chopped liver. You think that I'm like the lowest of Christians. This is what God did for me."

Paul says, "Why did I have to have the thorn in the flesh?" He says it twice in verse seven: "To keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me." Why? "To keep me from exalting myself because of the things that I've seen, the things that I've heard." How do you not let your heart fill up with pride? The Lord gave him a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble.

God has a purpose in the thorns. He uses thorns to keep us humble. Why is that so important? Because there are six things which the Lord hates. Yes, seven, which are an abomination to him, and number one on the list is pride. Anytime you allow yourself to get proud, you will be opposed by God. Secondly, he uses thorns to keep us dependent on him, to show us how weak we are, to show us how needy we are so we don't ever get the idea that we can do it on our own.

This fits in with pride because pride says, "God, I got this. I don't need you on this one." You might think, "You've given me a great voice, and so I can sing. That's okay, God. You can take this one. I'll take this one. You just sit this one out." That's dangerous. Jesus said, "Apart from me, you can do nothing." You need to abide in Him. If you abide in me, my power will flow through you.

So what does a thorn do? It keeps us dependent upon God. We're humble and we're dependent. Thirdly, God uses thorns to pour out his grace and display his power. Paul is praying concerning this. In verse 8, he says, "I entreated the Lord. I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me." And he has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you. My grace is enough for you, Paul. My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness."

And the light came on for Paul. This is a vehicle that God is using to pour in his grace to me. Wow. He says, "Most gladly, therefore, I would rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I'm well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties."

"For my sake? No, for Christ's sake. I'm not doing this because I'm just human. This isn't because I'm outside of the will of God. This is for Christ's sake. That's why these things are coming to me." He says, "For when I'm weak, then I'm strong." Then God's power flows through me. The grace of God—"My grace is sufficient for you."

I was listening to a testimony just in the last couple of weeks, and the missionary was going through such a difficult time. Second Corinthians, Chapter 12 came into her heart and mind. The Lord put into her mind that verse in verse nine: "My grace is sufficient for you. My grace is enough for you. You're going through such a hard time, but my grace is enough for you. It's all you need."

She said this: "The Lord told me, 'Darlene, I didn't say my grace was sufficient. I didn't say my grace will be sufficient. I said, right with what you're dealing with, my grace is sufficient for you, and I sit on the throne of grace. You can come boldly to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.'"

Oh, the thorn that we don't want comes to us when we understand this is God's vehicle to pour out his grace in my life. If I get proud, he can't use me. He's opposed to me; he'll line up against me. If I'm not dependent upon him, apart from Him, I can do nothing. This is the way that he pours out his grace in my life and displays his power through me. Because when I'm weak, then I depend upon him, and then I'm strong.

You have a thorn in your flesh, so to speak. You have something in your life that you don't want to be there, something that the Lord has allowed to come in. It's something that you've prayed about and prayed about and prayed about. The answer is, "My grace is sufficient for you." I'm not taking this away. God never took this away from Paul. Because if God had taken it away from Paul, Paul would have been very subject to pride. Then God couldn't use him, and Paul wouldn't have had power in his life.

He needed this in his life. This messenger of Satan, whatever it was—probably a combination of physical and spiritual—was an attack from the enemy that God was controlling and using for good. So much of the time, we push the thorn away and say, "No, I don't want this. No, I don't want this." Madame Guyon was a French mystic, a Christian who lived in the 1600s. She wrote to a friend one day who was suffering, saying, "Ah, if you only knew what power there is in an accepted sorrow when you quit fighting God."

When you just receive from God and say, "All right, Lord, I may not understand this, but I trust you. I know that your grace is sufficient for me." Annie Johnson Flint, who spent years dealing with rheumatoid arthritis and tremendous suffering, wrote the words to this hymn:

"He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater. He sendeth more strength when the labors increase. To added afflictions, he addeth his mercy. To multiplied trials, his multiplied peace. When we have exhausted our store of endurance, when our strength has failed ere the day is half done, when we reach the end of our hoarded resources, our Father's forgiving is only begun. His love has no limits. His grace has no measure. His power has no boundary known unto man. For out of his infinite riches in Jesus, he giveth and giveth and giveth again."

You can never exhaust God's grace. As one preacher said, can you imagine a little guppy in the ocean? He's swimming around saying, "You know, I may be eating up all the kelp here. There might not be enough." We laugh at that because we think, "Hey, little guppy, little fish in the sea, you can't eat up all this more and more and more."

God says, "That's what I have for you. My grace is sufficient for you. It's sufficient for your every need." I was thinking about Kathryn Marshall. When she was 29 years old, she contracted tuberculosis in 1943. She was basically an invalid for three years as she dealt with that disease. She said, "I had been sick for so long with this lung infection, and the doctors couldn't figure out what to do. I was praying and praying and praying, all the faith I could muster, and it resulted in nothing."

She said, "One afternoon, a pamphlet was put in my hands. It was the story of a missionary who had been an invalid for eight years. She prayed constantly that God would make her well so that she might do her work. Finally, after eight years, she was just worn out. She said to the Lord, 'All right, I give up. If you want me to be an invalid, that's your business. I want you even more than I want health. You decide, Lord.' Within two weeks, the woman was out of bed and completely well."

Kathryn Marshall said, "I read that story, and it made absolutely no sense to me, but I couldn't get away from it. Then one morning, sometime after that, it was September 14th. How could I ever forget? I came to the same point as that missionary, the point of abject acceptance. I said to the Lord, 'I'm tired of asking. I'm beaten and I'm finished. God, you decide what you want from me.' The tears just began to flow. I felt no faith as I understood faith, and I expected nothing in response from God."

The result? "It was as if I touched a button that opened windows in heaven, as if some dynamo of heavenly power began flowing into and flowing. Within a few hours, I experienced the presence of the living Christ in a way that wiped away all doubt and revolutionized my life from that moment. My recovery began through this incident."

God was trying to teach me something important about prayer. She said, "Gradually I saw that a demanding spirit with self-will as its rudder blocks prayer. The reason for this is that God absolutely refuses to violate our free will. Unless self-will is voluntarily given up, even God cannot move to answer prayer."

She said, "What did Jesus pray in the Garden of Gethsemane? 'Abba, Father, Daddy, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.'" Kathryn said, "Listen, don't get this confused. She calls this the prayer of relinquishment, when you relinquish your will to the Lord's. Don't get this confused with resignation. There's a big difference between acceptance of God's will and resignation. There is no resignation in the prayer of relinquishment."

Resignation says, "This is my situation, and I resign myself and settle down to it." Resignation lies down in the dust of a godless universe and readies itself for the worst. Acceptance, on the other hand, says, "True, this is my situation at the moment. I look unblinkingly at the reality of it, but I'll also open up my hands to accept willingly whatever a loving father sends."

Thus, acceptance never slams the door on hope. Yet even while it hopes, our relinquishment must be the real thing. This giving up of self is the hardest thing we human beings are ever called to do. "Not my will, but yours be done." In the book *Beyond Ourselves*, she gives the prayer of relinquishment, where you relinquish your will to the Lord's, where you receive what he has given and say, "All right, Lord, if this is what you want me to have, I know that your grace is sufficient for me."

Speaker 1

Are you willing to graciously accept whatever the providence of God places on you today? If you'll put these spiritual principles into practice, it'll completely change your outlook on spiritual wounds and suffering for the Lord Jesus Christ. Today, you've been listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve and part two of the lesson called the Wounds of a Good Soldier. It's from Pastor Jeff Shreve's seven-lesson series, Soldiers of the Cross.

Christians are called to be good soldiers in the Lord's army, as we've learned today and throughout this month. It means that we need to endure the wounds so that we can deepen our testimony and our faithfulness and trust in our Almighty God in Christ. But sometimes that is easier said than done. What does it take to be an effective, good soldier for Christ? In Pastor Jeff's seven-lesson series, Soldiers of the Cross, that we've been in this month, he'll share a lot about being an influencer for the Lord.

But by first putting on the full armor of God, being disciplined, courageous, mature in your offense against the devil, and continually on your knees in prayer, you can understand the fight that we're in and finish the race that the Lord has given us. This timely series, Soldiers of the Cross, is our gift of thanks to you for your support this month of any amount, and you can get the series on CDs, DVDs, USB flash drive, or digital download.

With your gift, we'll also send you the companion booklet, The Lord's Army, both for your gift today to help From His Heart reach the world with these encouraging lessons for new soldiers who are in the battle and wondering how God is going to help them through it. Get prepared and get the Soldiers of the Cross series and The Lord's Army booklet today. Call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-BIBLE) or go online to fromhisheart.org. God bless you for standing with us to share these timely encouragements each day right here on this station.

Well, thank you for joining us today on From His Heart. I'm Larry Nobles, trusting that today's lesson was a blessing to you and that you will join us again tomorrow when Pastor Jeff begins another compelling series entitled Encountering the Real Jesus. That begins next time when we'll open God's Word and share From His Heart.

From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and a hurting world. Remember, no matter what, God loves you and He has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out more at fromhisheart.org.