2 Corinthians chapter 12, page 970. If you're using one of the church's Bibles, 2 Corinthians 12, 1 through 10 is our text for this morning. I've already heard how Paul ended 2 Corinthians 11 with the great boast of his weakness. And we are able very easily to join with Paul and say, if you gave me time I could list my own set of weaknesses as well, my own set of sufferings and difficulties. In 2 Corinthians 11, we heard Paul's willingness to use satire to make the points, sort of a satirical boasting. And what we'll discover in 2 Corinthians 12 is that he's going to keep on boasting. There's some satire that continues even into this text, and it leads us in a surprising direction. I want you to listen, children, in particular for the idea of paradise. Paradise is a word that's often used for the most wonderful place in the world, heaven itself. And Paul speaks of that here, one of the few places in the New Testament where that word appears. So with that in mind, let's stand for the reading of God's Word, 2 Corinthians 12, 1 through 10. Give ear to God's Word. I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise. Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows. And he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. Though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth, but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from being conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being conceited. 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. for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, than I am strong." This is God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we are too weak even to comprehend this text. We are too weak to receive its power. Would You give us Your strength now? We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, people do long for paradise. It's a type of longing that almost seems to form naturally in the heart. A longing for that place of wonder and happiness someday I'll enter in. I believe it was in college, when I was in college, that the well-known band Coldplay released their song titled Paradise. I looked this morning, it's in about the top 100 or so, a little beyond, 100 or so most watched YouTube videos of all time. And in Paradise, Coldplay sings the story of a girl who has a longing that's developed within her even from childhood. Just listen to some of the words. Some of you may know it. When she was just a girl, she expected the world, expected it all to come. When she was just a girl, she expected the world, but it flew away from her reach. So she ran away in her sleep and dreamed of paradise. Every time, she closed her eyes. The world escaped her reach, so she dreams of paradise. It goes on. But when she was just a girl, she expected the world. But it flew away from her reach. The bullet's catching her teeth. Life goes on. It gets so heavy. In the night, the stormy night, she'll close her eyes. In the night, the stormy night, away she'd fly and dream of paradise. Life has hit her hard and all that's left for her to do is in the night to close her eyes and dream of paradise. Maybe you're that girl this morning. Maybe you've been that girl or you know that girl. The one who has had a great longing for the world to come and fill you with happiness, and then life hits. The bullets caught in your teeth, to use that expression. And all that's left is the dreams. All that's left is going to bed at night and thinking about the way the world could possibly have been for you. Certainly we're surrounded by that. You look at the statistics on the difficulty of depression and other maladies that face so many, maybe even some of you this morning. It's also a challenge that comes to the Christian faith. We sing Psalm 96 about the trees and the oceans rejoicing, and the Christian life is gonna abound with joy, and some of us sing Psalm 96 and say, I don't really know what that's talking about. The Christian life is not quite like that. It doesn't land like paradise. That's actually part of why Paul's writing 2 Corinthians 12, because he'd have opponents coming alongside saying, he's your guy? He's the guy that's teaching you the truth. Look what he's going through. Are you sure you've got the right religion? Are you sure you've got the right apostle? Because look at all his weakness. That's not paradise. And maybe you're there this morning. You're sort of testing whether or not you're in the right church, you're in the right faith, because of the suffering that afflicts the Christian church, or the lack of prosperity, What do we do when world doesn't feel like paradise? And that makes this text, maybe at first glance, a bit exciting. Because that guy that's being mocked, the Apostle Paul, points out a way to paradise. 2 Corinthians 12, 3. This man, speaking of a man, we'll speak later of why it would be phrased that way, was caught up into paradise. There you have it. Followers of Jesus Christ, at least one in history, has a way to paradise. And so there's a sense here where we're moving. We're moving from, you might think at first, we're moving from the weakness of chapter 11 to the paradise of chapter 12. And here we discover, in a sense, and it is what we'll discover this morning, the Christian's path to paradise. But you might already be guessing it's a unique path that we take to paradise. In many ways, what we're hearing this morning is Paul telling a story, a story of weakness and paradise, All great stories or books have chapters, and so we're going to consider this journey to paradise in four chapters. Four chapters of Paul's story of paradise. And the first chapter is Paradise Entered. Paradise Entered, verses 1 through 3. Paul, he says, verse 1, is going to go on boasting. It's that satire continuing. But we discover that the boast here at the start is no longer a basket-out-of-a-window-in-Damascus-type experience. That's not the general thing that we would boast of. The time we had to escape that hotel out of a basket because we were about to get arrested. That's more the stories we don't like to tell. Paul says, in a sense, we get the idea. He pushes that aside to talk about visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Verse 3, I know that this man was caught up into paradise. Paul knows a man in Christ. Well, who is this man? As you read through the passage and you discover as you go into verse 10 how autobiographical this passage is, we realize this is the Apostle Paul still speaking in that kind of satirical way. This is all about Paul's experience from verse one to verse 10. And what a story Paul tells of his experience. 14 years ago. Early on in Paul's ministry, he had this transcendent experience. He remembers the day. I was thinking this morning, what was I doing 14 years ago? Well, I was in the midst of my period of the time I was dating Orlena and starting to think about engagement, the monumentous times in my life. And Paul had this monumental moment 14 years ago. He went up to the third heaven. That's the language of verse 2. Verse 3, it's paradise. A transcendent moment. The man of weakness, guess what? The guy who was ushered out of the window in Damascus found his way up to what we've all been longing for. He found his way to paradise. It's the stuff the song is longing for. Not just a dream. He really had it. And maybe you're asking, now what is this? What is this third heaven? What is paradise? We need to know the answer to that question, to understand the text, but also to understand, in a sense, the pilgrimage Paul is speaking of here, one that maybe we would enter on our way, we'd hope, to paradise. What is paradise? Revelation 2 equates paradise with entering the tree of life. Promised in the Garden of Eden, it comes back to us in eternity. Paradise is the restored Garden of God. It's the ultimate Garden of Eden. That's why the call to worship was Isaiah 51, about the Garden. Central to the idea of Garden is the presence of God. Remember how God was with Adam and Eve in the Garden. Do you remember what Jesus said to the thief on the cross? Today you'll be with me in paradise. Part of the paradise is being with the Son of God. So we could say that paradise is the garden of God's presence. The garden of God's presence. And that helps us think about the maybe more obscure language of verse 2, third heaven. Third heaven, again, is speaking of the ultimate place of God's presence. There are ways you could think about it as you go through the text of Scripture. Third heaven, the first heaven could be the sky you see. The second heaven is the stars that in a sense are above the sky. And then the third heaven is the heaven beyond that, the heaven you can't see, where God is, sort of a spatial way of thinking about it. Could also be thinking of the way that's habernacle and temple were structured. The tabernacle and temple were three tiered. You had the first tier, the outer courts, the second tier, the inner courtyard, the inner part of the temple, and then you got the third tier, the holy of holies. The third place was the place of God's ultimate presence. Paradise, third heaven. What do you have? Paul answered, the holy of holies of the presence of God. Paul met with the living God in a sense taken up into the holy presence of God in a transcendent, life-altering vision of glory. And at one level you hear that and you say, what hope there is, right? The guy who's out of the window in Damascus makes his way from weakness into glory, and maybe you're ready to listen in and you're ready to say, so how do I get there? Is the road there? Is it there for me tomorrow? Is there a way for me to enter the glorious presence of God, you're ready to sing with the song that the place of paradise is not just, say, something for my dreams. Maybe you think of Dorothy singing in The Wizard of Oz about the place over the rainbow, this land that once you heard of in a lullaby, and you're thinking, I long to go there. I long for the weakness to disappear, because then I'll meet with the living God. Maybe your bags are packed. Maybe it's been one of those weeks for you. One of those weeks where you'd say, you know what? How about next week, Lord? How about next week you take me up with the Apostle Paul and I enter the garden of God's ultimate presence? There's a kind of hope here, but you recognize as well a distance that almost might make the longing more painful. almost might make the longing more difficult because you recognize that Paul is speaking of a very unique experience. Paul is speaking of something that doesn't happen very frequently for believers. In a sense, you might feel a distance from Paul here. Good for you. You made it up to paradise, but what about those of us who still live on earth? who still expect the stormy skies to be there this week, the difficulty, the struggle. Good for you, Paul. But what about us? What about the real life of hunger and weakness and anxiety and fear and stress and God not yet answering my prayers? Paul had an experience that we haven't had. He entered paradise. But what's the road for us? The hope at this point in this text is just to recognize it's only verse three. It's only verse 3, and there's 10 verses. You ought to keep listening. You ought to keep listening to Paul's story. First chapter, paradise entered. Second chapter, paradise evaluated. Paradise evaluated. We'll carry on into verse 6 as we hear Paul's evaluation of paradise. How does Paul describe paradise to us? What was paradise like, Paul? Well now you go back and you reread verses 2 and 3 and you recognize that Paul himself seems a bit distant from the paradise experience. He's not even sure whether it was in the body or out of the body. He says that twice in verse 2 and verse 3. Verse 4, he heard things that cannot be told, things which he will not utter. And that should shock you to hear it. Think about the most exciting moment of your life. All your friends have probably heard about it six or seven times at minimum. Because we like to tell of the mountaintop moments of our life. And here's Paul saying, I don't know. Not even sure I was in the body. I'm not even sure that event is worth talking about. That's probably the reason for the third person description. It was just a man in Christ. It was a guy that got taken up to heaven. Yes, it happened. Yes, I could boast of all those things. I could lean hard into that. I could tell all the other apostles around you, the fake apostles, about all this thing that happened to me 14 years ago. But, well, I'm foggy on the details and there's really not much to say about that. Think about how counter-cultural that is. They're authors of so-called heaven tourism books. Maybe you've read a few of those. Maybe you've read those because these people who claim to have mystical experiences in heaven, you think, they've got it. They've got the mystery. I want the details of what it's like to be in the presence of God. I want someone to let everybody know what it's like. And here's Paul, he says, not much to talk about there. Maybe you go looking around. Maybe you long to have some dream or vision that gets you into the presence of God. Or maybe you're attracted to other Christians who say they've had it. Maybe you get a little jealous because here's this person who God spoke to them when they were on that car trip, or God met them in the nights, and now they really know what the Christian life is all about. And what can happen? We start to become jealous. Why'd God speak to you and not me? Maybe we become doubtful of whether we really have a lively faith in Christ because those things don't happen to us. And then we read of Paul. If anyone could talk this way, it's the Apostle Paul. And Paul's basically saying, haven't even come to a conclusion of exactly what happened there. I've moved on from that because that's not where it's at. That's not what I want you to know about me. Verse 5 and 6, what I want you to know about me is my weakness. I don't want you to think more of me than what you see in me or hear from me. I want you to see the scars on my back. I want you to see the bags around my eyes because I haven't been sleeping very much. That's the Christian life I want you to see, the man in Christ 14 years ago. In a sense, let's move on from that. Let's move on from that experience. Let's move on from the assumption that a third heaven tourism is what's really needed to know that you'll make it through life and your weakness. Now, in a sense, who does Paul sound like there? Who's he reflecting? He's reflecting his Savior. He's reflecting the Lord Jesus Christ. He's reflecting the one who, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor. He's reflecting the Savior who dwelt in the third heaven for all eternity, who had the ultimate paradise with God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt here, decided to go to sleep that night in a manger. so that what would be seen of the Son of God was a baby in His weakness, a baby in His suffering. And you see, it's one thing to be in awe at the Apostle Paul. If the Apostle Paul, if all we had was verse one to three, you'd want to sit with him at fellowship lunch and say, could you tell me all about it just one more time? I love that story about you going to heaven. And Paul would say, can we move on? Because I want you to see the Christian life in weakness. I want you not to be so much in awe that there is one who went into paradise, but be awe at the Son of God who left paradise into weakness. And right away this morning, you are called to stop looking around, waiting for some mystical, out-of-this-world experience so that you can know you're really living. Maybe you're longing. Maybe you're thinking, this way I'm practicing my Christian faith. Is there another way of practicing the Christian faith? that would really get me into communion with God. Is there another style of Christianity out there for me that's going to lead me in? I was reading an article this morning about Rob Bell. Maybe some of you know that name, a one-time professing Christian teacher that sort of went off the deep end into all kinds of mystical offerings for people to really get to know God. And reading this article about someone who said, I fell for it. until I didn't. That's what I thought I needed, and then I saw the emptiness. Maybe it's there for you somewhere else. Maybe it's in your marriage where you're thinking, I thought marriage would get me into paradise. I thought marriage would get me into the third heaven. Maybe I need a change here because this doesn't feel like it. Maybe this is wrong. And Paul would say, let's talk about weakness. Let's enter the life of the Savior. Let's speak of the things that you see and hear of us and our weakness. Let's go in the route of Jesus Christ. What might God do for us when He meets us under the rainbow, you might say? What might we discover about God in the footsteps of Christ? Paradise evaluated. Let's go to the third chapter. In some ways it gets more painful than that, doesn't it? It's not just the pain of, we're not talking about my heaven visit. It's the pain, third chapter, of paradise lost. Paradise lost, yes there is a book called that. Paradise lost, verses 7 and 8. Paul now goes, fascinating isn't it, into great first person detail of another experience he had in life. He's almost in a different mode in verse 7 to 8. Verse 1 to 3, He's foggy on the details. Verse 7 to 8, He wants you to know all the details. He wants you to know about this one. He wants to talk to you about this one over the fellowship lunch table, Corinthians. to keep me from being conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations. A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being conceited. You need to see in this verse how everything that happens in verse 7 is the verse 2 and 3 experience turned on its head. It's the flip side of the glory moment of verse 2 and 3. So instead of a peaceful walk through the garden, we know the garden would have had no thorns, right? That's an emphasis, the thorns came after the fall. Instead of a peaceful walk through paradise garden, he gets a thorn, barbs into his flesh. Instead of the presence of the living God speaking to him, it's a deceitful messenger of Satan speaking with him. Instead of being caught up and rescued from suffering, he's being harassed and pursued into more suffering. Here's one. Instead of barely even being able to tell the physical experience, he doesn't even know if he's in the body or out, Here he feels the agony in his flesh. He's feeling it. He knows for sure this one was in the flesh because the thorn hurt so bad. He's right there. This is what his body remembers. Already mentioned that instead of speaking in the third person in verse two and three, I know this guy. Verse seven, it was me. It was definitely all the way the apostle Paul. Maybe most simply, instead of heaven, it's hell. Instead of the messenger from heaven, it's suffering from the pet of hell that comes to him in verse 7 from Satan himself. Suddenly this rescue to paradise, we realize it's actually a story about expansion of our weakness. Expansion of difficulty, that's what lands on the Apostle Paul in this message. And Paul's very clear about it. Maybe your interpretation here would be, well, that's what happens when Satan gets in the way of our plans. No, no. It was given. It was given. The Lord God saw it to come about so that Paul wouldn't become conceited, so that Paul wouldn't tell you for the 10,000th time about that great visit he had to the glory of heaven. He was given something to take the conceit away. And in this moment, Paul identifies with real Christian living. Most of us cannot really identify with what it's like to be taken up to the third heaven. But when Paul starts talking about thorns in the flesh, he has become just like you, hasn't he? He's entered the real Christian suffering. God took him there. This is what it's like to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the thorn in the flesh? What is it to have a thorn put in the flesh in the Christian life? There are a lot of opinions on the specifics of that question. And then one has observed that what commentators tend to do is they tend to identify the thorn as the greatest struggle in their own personal life. And maybe that's actually a good way to read it. If you are with John Chrysostom, You would identify the thorn in the flesh as opponents to the truth who make Christian ministry difficult. And Paul would have known that, surrounded by opponents all the time who would be a thorn in his side. Maybe you would read verse 7 and think more with Augustine of Hippo. He thought about it in terms of the temptations of the flesh. belonging to sin, a passion and desire that you seem to be unable to control, and even though you pray about it, it won't go away. That's a kind of thorn in the flesh. Maybe you'd say amen when Martin Luther would get in the pulpit, who identified it as the temptation to doubt, the temptation to doubt the living God, the temptation to perhaps doubt your salvation. That can be a thorn in the flesh. Many identify it as physical weakness. There are some scholars who look at the language as it's used in that time and think that Paul may be speaking of something like migraine headaches. And maybe that surprises you, but if you struggle with migraine headaches, or you struggle with another chronic malady, you might look and say, that's exactly what it's like. That's exactly what it's like. And I pray to the Lord to take it away, and it doesn't go away. Still another would identify it just as whatever spiritual warfare you're facing, Satan's got his arrows pointed straight at me, you would say. You see, whatever it is, ever since the thorns started in Genesis chapter 3, thorns in the flesh have been coming to those seeking to follow the living God. And you may be able to write now, write down or just mentally process, you think, this is the thorn that I'm dealing with. This is the thorn that I'm facing. Thorns that show up on the other side of paradise. When they're kicked east of Eden, Adam's gardening project starts to have thorns. And maybe you look at your life and say, tell me about it. tell me about it and the cherubim still stand in front of the garden and there's no way I can get in. You know the thorns you've got this morning and the mystery of life lands that God allows it and it really hurts. The text invites us there individually. It invites the church there. Paul is leaning in and saying, Church of Jesus Christ, don't run off with those other apostles. This is where the Christian life really does show up. And maybe our greatest hope here is just to realize, as you say, that's me, you can also say that's Jesus. That's what happened to Jesus Christ. Paul here is making subtle comparisons of his life to Christ's life over and over again. Who had the crown of thorns put on his head? Christ Himself. Paul, a thorn in the flesh. Christ, a thorn in the flesh. We face messengers of Satan. Christ faced Satan himself. We're harassed. Language that Paul uses. Christ. Matthew 26, 67. Was harassed by the guards who had put Him on the cross. Same word. Paul is leaning in. His life is a demonstration of what Jesus went through. Because He's pointing you back to Christ. 2 Corinthians 4, we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord. You see, in a way that paradise tomorrow never could, as you suffer tomorrow, you're entering into the lifestyle of your Savior. You're entering into the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Think of the cross lifted up and you and I just sitting in its shadow. That's what suffering with Christ is all about. And when that happens, when we're suffering with Jesus Christ, seeking to live for Him in a world of trouble, where does it take us when paradise is lost? It takes us to our knees. Verse 8, three times, I pleaded with the Lord about it, that it should leave me. Notice again the comparison. Third heaven, the threefold heaven, or threefold prayer of desperation. And who else had a threefold prayer of desperation? Who else went into prayer three times asking for something to be taken from him? You know. Paul is here walking still on the footsteps of the Savior. The Garden of Gethsemane. What did he do? It was not. It was not the Garden of Paradise where Jesus was praying that night. It was the Garden where Christ was facing hell itself. fell on his knees, weeping and pleading for an hour. He goes back to the disciples. They're asleep. He does it again. Three hours of prayer. Take this cup from me. And Paul, in a sense, is saying, don't sleep on the chance. I'm not sleeping on the chance and you shouldn't sleep on the chance to pray like Jesus. to fall on your own knees in the garden and plead with the Lord. Lord, if it's possible, take this cup from me. Maybe you think that thorn is too deep in your life. The temptation is so in there, it's not going away. The oppressor from Satan, the voices, the despair, the doubts, the grief. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to say, you know what, I've given up long time ago that God answers prayers like that. I'm just going to sleep this one out like the 12 disciples. Or will you join with Paul and say, Lord, take it away from me, but not my will, but yours be done. Join with Christ. When's the last time you prayed like that? It might take you three hours to pray like that. You don't have time to pray like that. Make time. Enter into the footsteps of Jesus Christ. When paradise is lost, we're being invited to prayer. I remember in my own life, one of the most intense spiritual seasons I ever went through, just a sense of darkness all around. It was the first time in my life I ever started praying on my knees. And maybe that was the point. Maybe that's why the Lord led me there, so that I could learn what it meant to fall on my face before God and plead. Paradise lost. But there's a fourth chapter, and I'll give you the title of the chapter at the end. There's a fourth chapter to this story, verse 9 and 10. But He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness. Did you remember a few minutes ago we were talking about a revelation from God that Paul wasn't going to talk about? Things he wasn't going to utter. There was nothing in there for the Corinthians that they really needed to hear about what he heard in the third heaven. Paul says, here's a revelation from heaven itself you need to hear. Here's the message you need to know. of what God has to say to sinners, of what God has to say to us in our weakness, in our frailty, in our inability. Think about it. The verse 4 revelation has never been translated into any language because we don't know what it is. Think about how many hundreds of languages and thousands upon thousands of Christians have memorized, have received and memorized verse 9. You've probably received and memorized it, some of you. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. That's the message we land on. I will boast all the more gladly. Can you believe the word gladly is in verse 9? He's rejoicing in this. My weaknesses, he's boasting in, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Sufficient grace and perfecting power. That's where this thing lands. On the sufficient grace of God and the perfecting power of God. This is the experience. This is why we still come to this. This is why we still come to church and worship the living God. Because this is an experience like no other. The sufficient grace of God. What is grace? Grace at its most basic is the overflowing of God's gifts, the overflowing of God's gift to sinners then, what was purchased at the cross, the kindness of God poured out on those who don't deserve it, and God's grace is not sort of lightly offered out in tiny little tokens, it's offered so that you could say that's sufficient. Ever had a meal where your mother or your grandmother gives you so much, and at some point you say, I've had enough, because it was so good. And in our weakness, the grace of God shows up, and we say, it's sufficiency. It meets the need. It meets the need for us in that weakness. It's the grace of God, and it's the power of God. You've got to know this, when Paul speaks of power, especially in 1st and 2nd Corinthians, he's always connecting it to the resurrection. He's always connecting it. So 2nd Corinthians 13.4, your eyes may be able to see it on your page. He was crucified in weakness but lives by the power of God. Weakness is basically Paul's category for walking in the footsteps of the cross. Power is his category for the resurrection showing up. And the idea here is that in your weakness, you have a grace for the weakness and there's a resurrection power that shows up. But you've got to realize this. It's not a resurrection power to Paul that says, I'm yanking you from the weakness right now. It's a resurrection power in your weakness that in the moment of the most intense experience of the cross, simultaneously, the resurrection shows up. And as you boast in your weakness, as you lean into it, as you stop asking for directions to the third heaven before God would take you there, which He will in glory, as you lean into it and boast in your weakness, you will experience it. So what's that going to look like? Think about your thorn in the flesh. You have the thorn, you're facing the temptation. And you think, I've prayed so many times for this to go away, and do I really have to resist it again today? And you go back and you remember the drips of blood coming from your Savior in the garden. You remember the power of the resurrection. He meets you there, and one more day we're gonna seek to fight this temptation that hasn't gone away. Maybe it's the physical malady in your life. You can talk about the migraine headaches. You can talk about challenges that have stretched you beyond your ability to describe what it's like to be going through it. And maybe you're at the point of saying, is it even worth it to try again tomorrow? Because I have no doctors taking this thorn away from me. But the grace of God is abundant still. The power of God is present to meet you there. And what better power to have than the risen Christ wrapping His arms around you and speaking His truth to you in that suffering? The whole church of Jesus Christ can do this. How many more years, we might say as Christians, is the church going to keep being persecuted? How many more years is there going to be pain and suffering in the church? And the Lord would say, watch out for My grace and power in that suffering and don't give up now. Boast in your weakness. I really just want to land on one more observation here of what that grace and power will mean to us. What will it be? Look back at the end of verse 9. I'm going to boast, he says, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. That word for rest is The Greek word, in Greek, is the word used to describe the Lord's presence filling the tabernacle. It's the word for Christ coming to dwell among us. Remember, the tabernacle was this earthly picture of paradise where God would come and bring his presence. It was as entering the Garden of Eden. You want a taste of paradise? Suffer with Jesus, and the power of Christ will rest upon you. And you may never enter that third heaven experience in this life, and you'll say, yes, but I know what the God of that third heaven is like. I know a bit of what the Garden of Eden will be like. Let me tell you about my suffering. Let me tell you about what it's like to have God meet me and my weakness, my insults, my hardships, my persecutions and calamities. No, the weaknesses don't go away, but right there, paradise shows up when Jesus meets me in my suffering. The final point is paradise now. Paradise now. A kind of paradise of in our weaknesses, boasting in Jesus Christ and entering the paradise of tasting of the garden even while we suffer. So for you today, boast in your weakness. Be very honest about your weakness. Get on your knees and pray so that the power of Christ may rest upon you. Let's pray.