2 Corinthians chapter 12 tonight. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. The first nine chapters of 2 Corinthians are Paul defending his apostleship. The first nine chapters that we've seen over the last year is Paul defending his apostleship. He taught about suffering in chapter 1. He taught about forgiveness in chapter 2. He taught about characteristics of a biblical ministry in chapter 3. The motivations for a biblical ministry in chapters 4 and 5. About the effects of a biblical ministry in chapters 6 and 7. In other words, He was teaching, in his defense of his biblical ministry, he was teaching them, here are the characteristics of it, the motivations for it, the effects of it. Then he gets to 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, chapters on missions giving, and he teaches the consequences of the grace of God in a biblical ministry, the consequences of the grace of God. And then he gets to chapter 10, and he had defended his apostleship in chapters 1 to 9, and in chapter 10, he explains spiritual warfare. Chapter 10, if you were outlining the book, you'd say Roman numeral number 2. He's explaining spiritual warfare in chapter 10. Then he gets to chapter 11 and 12, and he gives us an inside look to spiritual leadership. So if you're taking and outlining the whole book, number 3, I would say Paul gives an inside look to spiritual leadership. And we saw that last week. We saw Paul's concern in verses 1 to 4. Well, that was 2 or 3 weeks ago, actually. But we saw Paul's concern in verses 1 to 4. We saw his competition in verses 5 to 15, which are these Judaizers who are constantly speaking into the ears of the Corinthian church. And you sit back and you go, how come the Corinthian church, remembering that this is probably the fourth book he sent them, He spent 18 months there founding the church. He had come back through another time where he talks about rebuking them. So there was a second trip to Corinth later on in which it doesn't go well. Here is the great apostle Paul rebuking a church that he founded and that he loved and he cared for. And he's writing them now again because he's planning on coming and visiting them a third time minimum, maybe a fourth time. He doesn't want to have to go through that other time he came that was so ugly and so horrible and so awkward. And he's got these Judaizers who are claiming to come from Jerusalem, come from the Apostles. That's very doubtful that they were. seems to me that they were name-dropping. And they've fooled some of the Corinthian church. And it's just causing havoc in the church. And instead of the church being focused on reaching out and evangelizing and making disciples, the church is all caught up in, is Paul a good guy? Is Paul a bad guy? And they're all caught up in, should we even listen to Paul? And it always puts a pastor or a spiritual leader on the horns of a dilemma when people are attacking personally because If you defend yourself, it sounds like you're being defensive. But at the same time, you realize that Satan uses that discord among the brethren that Proverbs talks about, that we saw today in the list of characteristics of people that make themselves into God. We saw that it's both in the Old Testament and the New Testament because when they attack the spiritual leader personally, it will draw the people, draw people away from the teaching. And that's the real concern. For a godly minister, it's not, we're going to see this tonight in chapter 12 because he just completely unveils himself. He becomes the most transparent passage, the intimate look in the New Testament of what goes on in the heart of a leader is what we're going to see tonight. If you see some of the Psalms in the Old Testament that David writes, it's an equally intimate, transparent look into the heart of a leader. Paul is on this dilemma. We're going to see tonight that he's going to say, because he uses passive tense verbs, he's going to say, I've been forced into this position. I haven't wanted to say these things. I've served you, I've ministered to you, I've cared for you, I've wept over you, I've lost sleep over you. I haven't wanted to say, wait a second, here's who I am in Christ and here's what God has allowed me to accomplish. Have the people that are talking in your ear, have they done these kinds of things? And if they haven't, then way, way. It's easy for us to be caught up with somebody's verbiage, but what does the old grandma say? The proof of the pudding is how it actually tastes, not how it looks. I don't know if you've ever gone into those model homes and they have, you know, the furniture is so nice and everything, it's all upgraded, everything. And you walk in and there's a bunch of, there's a big fruit bowl. Anybody ever taken a bite out of the fruit bowl in a model home? If you have sadly disappointing as your lips wrap around a plastic apple, well, that's where Paul is going tonight. He is going to, he has shared his concern, we saw his competition, and then in verses 16 to 33, a couple weeks ago, he gives complete transparency. And now tonight, it's going to be Paul's conviction. So Paul's concern, Paul's competition, Paul's complete transparency, and now Paul's conviction. Verse 1, he says, it is doubtless not profitable for me to boast. He said, it is absolutely, it does you no good and me no good for me to tell you who I really am. I would really like to focus on the cross. I would love to focus on Jesus Christ. I would love to focus on the glories of heaven. I would love to focus on 50 other things other than wasting both of our times for me to tell you who I truly am. You don't see it in the Greek language, but I think at this moment, as Paul is writing, there's heavy sigh. If we had emojis and he was tweeting this, there would be an eye roll and, you know, the little emoji with the person with the eyes about this big. He says, I know a man. Now, he's so humble that he doesn't say, this was me. This is clearly Paul's experience. He doesn't even say, I went through this. He says, I know of a man in Christ 14 years ago. Now, because of the timeline here, this is an event that's not recorded anywhere else in Scripture. What he's about to describe doesn't take place in the book of Acts. Most likely, this experience happened to him at Antioch. After he had been converted in Damascus, spent time in Arabia, came back to Jerusalem, met with a few of the apostles, as he records in Galatians 1 and 2, and then he came to Antioch. And it's years later in Antioch that Barnabas comes down and finds him, and they go together, set apart by the local church, called to missions by the local church, and they're sent out to do church planning. in those few years that he's in Antioch before Barnabas comes to get him, that's this timeline. That's when this event likely takes place, is when he's in Antioch, before he goes on his first missionary journey, but after he's visited with Peter and James in Jerusalem, like he talks about in Galatians chapter 1 and 2. He has this experience. He says, whether in the body, I know not, or whether out of the body. In other words, He's not sure if he was physically taken to heaven or it was a spiritual revelation. He's not sure if he was in the body or if he was out of the body. He says, but he was caught up to the third heaven. Now Mormons will look at this and go, okay, so there's the terrestrial kingdom and the telestial kingdom and the celestial kingdom. That's not what he's talking about. The first heaven is the clouds that you see. The second heaven is space. The third heaven is where Jesus Christ, where heaven is, where he dwells. And he says, such a one was caught up to the third heaven, and I know such a man, whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows, how he was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. In other words, he's saying, look, I was caught up into heaven, and God taught me things and told me things, But because there are no witnesses, and because it cannot be verified, when he talks to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 15 and he says, Jesus Christ was buried and rose again, remember he gives witnesses. He was seen by the 12, and then he was seen by 500, and he was seen by me as one born out of due time. Paul's legal mind is always about verification of witnesses. He says here, he says, look, I can't tell you what was said because I don't have verification. I don't have a legal verification of this, but I'm just gonna tell you that I was caught into heaven and I was taught truths that undoubtedly were a part of his incredible motivation to evangelize the world and plant churches was what this vision, what this revelation was all about. He says, of such a one I will boast, yet of myself I will not boast. In other words, he says, I'll tell you the story because you've kind of pushed me to that by your constant sniping, your constant nitpicking, your constant trying to tear down me personally to wreck the ministry that God has given me. But I want you to know that God gave me this ministry by divine revelation in the third heaven. I mean, you stop and think about it, that's a pretty, as the kids in my generation would have said, a gnarly thing to say about where your calling comes from. I got my calling in the third heaven. Where did those Judaizers that are attacking me, where did they get their calling? That's what he's saying. He says, for though I might desire to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will speak the truth. He says, look, inside of me I'd like to say, have you ever been wrongly accused of something and you just want to set the record straight? I think we've all been there. In your marriage, at work, a roommate, teacher, a professor. Oh, they misunderstand. I gotta set this record straight. I mean, I know that I've gotta be right. I say one of the best things in marriage to have a happy marriage is to learn to give up the right to be right. Because you can be right and destroy a relationship. Paul says, I'm happy in so many words to give up the right to be right. And I'm not gonna, in my flesh, I would love to tell you and say, look, there's nobody else, save somebody like Elijah, who's caught up into heaven without death. There have been so few people in the history of mankind that have had the kind of revelation I've had. And then I have to deal with you petty little ignorant Corinthians, who I'm the one that planted the church, and I'm the one that's writing you in scripturated, truth filled with the Holy Spirit, I shouldn't have to go through this. I shouldn't have to. But Paul says, but I will speak the truth. But what I will do is I will refrain lest anyone should think of me above that what he sees me to be or hears from me. In other words, that goes to the point I was making is, he's not going to tell them what he learned in heaven, what he saw in heaven, because there's no corroborating witness. But he said, what you see in me and hear in me, there are corroborating witnesses. You know what I do. You know that I don't take money from you, that I make tents. You know that I walk uprightly. You know that there's accountability for all the finances that we take in. 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, he had multiple guys taking the money back to Jerusalem. He said, you know my manner of living. You know what I am. I'm not going to tell you who I am except what you see and what you hear. Because what you see and what you hear, it can be verified. It can be verified. So, Paul's conviction, and then I want you to notice, secondly, Paul's crisis. So Paul's conviction is, I'm going to tell you about this experience, but I'm not going to go into detail on it, simply because it's not verifiable, and I want to rest my ministry on what you can see and hear. But at the same time, you're forcing me into saying, my revelation is directly from Jesus Christ in heaven. But look at Paul's crisis, verse seven. And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me. Wow, how theologians and commentary writers had a field day with this. What was his thorn in the flesh? Now, when I went to Greek class in seminary, I had a great Greek teacher. I had several, but one main Greek teacher. And we had a class, and we'd have 25 or 30 guys in there. We'd have two chalkboards. This is back in the day, college students, we still had chalk. I know it's something you don't even know anything about today, but back in the days, pterodactyls brought us the chalk. And back in those days, we had two big chalkboards on this wall, had two big chalkboards on the front wall, and two big chalkboards. So we had six chalkboards. We would often come into Greek class, and Dr. Lovick had written C-O-N on one chalkboard, T-E-X-T, and the chalkboards here, C-O-N-T-X-T, and the chalkboards here, C-O-N-T, and huge letters, the whole height of the chalkboard. Context, context, context. And he would say, men, when you preach without the context, all you have is a pretext. And a lot of cherry picking preaching today is the verse sounds cool and good and it sounds like that's what the preacher's meaning, but it's outside of the context. How do you find interpretation? Context. So my favorite one that I'll use to illustrate context is if I say to my wife, honey, I love you. And all the women go, aw. Now I could say, Honey, I love you. And all the women go, man, he's a mean guy. That's not a nice way to say I love you. Context, context, context, right? It's all context. So let's, before we try to decide what the thorn in the flesh is, let's look at the context. The context, the previous context that he's transitioning out of, he's transitioning out of his last ditch effort to defend his ministry to a rebellious group in a church that is constantly sniping at him and sniping at him and sniping at him and pulling people away from the teaching of Paul and from the teaching of the Holy Spirit and he's constantly having to deal with this frustration and and he's he's at his last straw that's about to break the camel's back Now, I would even say the majority of commentators would tell you that the thorn in the flesh is likely a physical ailment. It's likely a physical ailment. Anything from, he writes in one book, you see what large letters I've written with my own hand, that it seems that Paul had an eye ailment that he couldn't see very well. I mean, if it would have been like me, I would have been, with my eyesight, if modern glasses hadn't been invented, I would be writing with really big hands because of my stigmatism. I mean, big letters, not big hands, but big letters. I'd be using really big letters because I can't see with my stigmatism very well. So some people have said, oh, it may be I. Other people have said he may have had gastric problems. There's all kinds of physical issues. I don't think it's any of those things. I think that the thorn in the flesh to him was a demonic messenger of Satan sent to torment him by using the deceivers to seduce the Corinthians into rebellion against him. There are at least four lines of evidence that I'm gonna give you really quickly why I believe the thorn in the flesh were the Judaizers in that church and the Corinthians in that church that were following and listening to the Judaizers. Number one, Because overwhelmingly, not every time, but every occurrence in Paul's writings, the word angelos refers to an angel. Now, there are some cases that I believe this word angelos refers to a human. There are several times in the New Testament that it refers to a human. But you know, Every time in Paul's writing, it's an angelic being. Sometimes demonic, sometimes heavenly. And he says there's a messenger, an angelos. We get our word angel from it. But the word messenger is easily used. I believe that the same word used in Revelation 2 and 3 when he writes to the angel of the church. it's a human, it's the senior pastor of the church. And there's several instances where it is a senior pastor, or I mean it is a human, but every time in Paul's writing, remember John writes Revelation, every time in Paul's writing it's a spirit being. Then second of all, the verb translated torment, in other words he says, lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelation of torment, Thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted. Buffet me, or torment me, always refers to harsh treatment from someone. We see the same verbiage in Matthew 26, Mark 14, 1 Corinthians 4, 1 Peter. So, in other words, this torment always comes from a person on you. It's never a physical ailment. It's always a person that is doing when this word is used. Sometimes the Old Testament refers metaphorically, number three, to opponents as thorns. Numbers 35, Joshua 23, Judges 2, Ezekiel 28, refer to opponents of these leaders as thorns. So that is in Paul's mindset. Also, the whole idea of torment, or a thorn in the flesh, is literally, in the Greek, is really a stake. In other words, you get to secular Greek with this word, and it's like what you use when you're defending your city, and you'd have a pointed object that would use to kill. In other words, we would call it a stake to the heart. He says, there was a stake, a thorn in my flesh, a stake driven into my flesh. And then finally, the verb translated leave in verse eight, so he says, concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart or leave me, is always used in the New Testament of a person departing. In other words, he was praying that the people in this church, this demonic oppression that was taking place in the church, using these Judaizers and drawing away people against Paul, He was praying that they would leave. Wow. If you take this in the context of the entire book, It really falls into the context, if you look down at verses 28 and 29 of chapter 11, which we just saw a couple weeks ago, he says, besides the other things, what comes upon me daily, my deep concern for all the churches, who is weak, and I am not weak, who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation. If I must boast, I will boast of things which concern my infirmity. So in other words, it's in the context of him being attacked, his person being attacked, and It seems that this thorn in the flesh, this stake to Paul's heart, is the people that he loves so deeply who are being taken away by false messengers inspired by Satan. Now here's the amazing thing. These false messengers inspired by Satan were using Jesus' words. They were using godly words. They had, in our culture, in our nomenclature, they had great worship services. They had articulate spokesmen. Because Paul even says, in so many words in 2 Corinthians, I'm not as articulate. I don't have the rhetoric they have. Because they always will say things about his speech isn't that good. He's not that articulate. All those kind of things that the Greeks thought were great. It's clear that these Judaizers were more articulate in Scripture than he was. And more articulate that could use turns of phrases. Better, more likely than Paul. And so because of that subtlety and the demonic influence, people are being, and it's a stake to Paul's heart. If you have a hireling as a pastor, do you know what a hireling is? Shepherd versus a hireling? A hireling is somebody that you pay. I'll never forget when I was in seminary, our librarian would make great deals with other libraries that were going out of business and even buy up libraries of professors of other seminaries that were retiring. He came back one day and he said he'd bought a 15,000-volume library of a liberal Baptist professor at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary that had just an amazing amount of Baptist history in it, 15,000 volumes. And he had bought it for, and this was in the mid-'80s, he'd bought it, I forget, $40,000 or $45,000, which was a tremendous sum of money. But in those days, $3 a hardback, and they were all hardbacks. I mean, that's an amazing library for about $40,000, $45,000. He was so good at it, he would call out about 10,000 books that were duplicates, and he would sell those for more than he'd bought the whole library for. And that's how he built the library there at Calvary Baptist Seminary for years and years. He did that kind of stuff. And I remember raising my hand, because I loved him as a history teacher. And I would say, Professor Stitzinger, I would say, why would a guy teach for 40 years, retire, and sell? Before this, I said, did he keep any books? Nope, sold every last book. Everything he read and studied, and 40 years he sold his entire library. He was moving to an island, and he was gonna lay on a beach the rest of his life. And I said to him, why would a guy spend 40 years teaching like that? And I mean, he could have been a part-time teacher. Why would he get rid of everything? And he looked at me, and I've never forgotten this. He said, Mike, because some are shepherds and some are hirelings. And he was a hireling. He just collected the books so he could do his job, and when he didn't have to do the job anymore, there wasn't any use for the books, because he didn't intend to actually serve or do ministry ever again. And I've never forgotten that. See, if you have a hireling as a pastor, he's never really burdened for the souls of his sheep, being taken away and deceived. Doesn't really bother him. He's concerned that maybe he loses their financial giving, his nice house, his nice car, his nice clothes. But he's not burdened. That's a hireling. A shepherd, his heart breaks when he sees what I showed you the picture today of those expensive cars all wrecked. And he sees the future of lives that are going to be wrecked because they're believing the lie that I preached about today out of Romans 1. The lie being, I can be God. I can be an autonomous independent. I'll follow somebody who scratches my ears and tells me how good I am and how good my kids are and how wonderful we all are. Because the end of that is not living for the glory of God and living a life of profanity. So many people will say, I would never swear, I'd never take the Lord's name in vain, but they live a life of profanity. You say, how do you live a life of profanity? When you don't live every moment for the glory of God, you're living a profane or an empty, worthless life. Many Christian teenagers, college young people, 20-somethings, they're living a profane life because, well, I'm just gonna sow my wild oats, and I'm gonna live how I wanna live, and I'm gonna live for me, and then maybe when I'm 30 or 40, I get married, have some kids, then I'll really serve the Lord. But you understand, you're living a profane life. You're living profanity because you're not living for the glory of God. You are actually breaking the first and second commandment by your lifestyle. You're profaning God. Paul is so broken, but he says this in verse 8, he says, concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times. I think I would give just about my right arm and my left leg to have ever been able to pray for a couple hours with the Apostle Paul. Could you imagine what that prayer meeting would have been like? Well, to be honest, since I only read Greek and don't speak it, I probably wouldn't have understood him. But anyway, just to have, and maybe I could have had him write his prayer out, and then I could have read it. But I think about what would it have been like to have been in a prayer meeting with the Apostle Paul calling out one who's inspired to write Scripture by the Holy Spirit, one who can heal the sick, and one, I mean, maybe the greatest Christian to have ever lived, planted many churches, probably wrote about half the New Testament. I mean, and he prays three times, God, If my understanding of the text is right, take these Judaizers out of the church of Corinth. Take them out. Stop the attacks on me, which are really attacks on your word. Stop that. God, please. It's drawing away people I love. Please, God, please take this stake in my heart. Take it away. Take it away. Get them away from your people. Paul says he prayed in earnest three times. And God's response was, my grace is enough. It's not if you are going to go through a time equivalent or similar to what Paul is going through in this text, that will be a stake to your heart, it's just when. Maybe in your life you've already gone through something like that and you've found the grace of God. You never find the grace of God until you need it. It's like manna in the desert for 40 years. God only gave them enough manna for one day so they would never become self-reliant. He gave them enough for two days on Sabbath. But He only gave them enough for one day every other year. You never find the grace of God until you cry out in desperation and you need it. God's response to Paul is, with everything you're doing, with the great grace that's been bestowed upon you, with the revelations that you've had in the third heaven, with inscripturating the text, with planting churches, with being this great Christian, being the apostle to the Gentiles, I'm going to let these Judaizers stay in that church to attack you. so that you'll know my grace is sufficient for the personal insults you go through." That speaks to a pastor's heart. He says, my strength is made perfect in weakness. In other words, they've made all kinds of accusations. He's not a good speaker. He changes his mind. I've given you through the year the different accusations that he answers. And they're almost always personal. One of my little sayings is around here is, when people don't have facts, they attack the person or the process. I'll say that again. When people don't have the facts, they attack the person or the process. And these Corinthians didn't have the facts on Paul, so they attacked his person, and they attacked the process by how he made decisions. Because they couldn't attack his spirituality, or the truth of the words he was teaching, or the fact that he planned to the church, they couldn't attack that. So they attacked his person, and they attacked the process by which he made decisions. And in so doing, they were causing dissension in this church. And God says to him, My strength is made perfect in weakness. In your weakness, in your human frailties, in your human weakness. Let me just tell you something. There is never, well, I guess, a sociopathic, egomaniac, narcissist. And there are some of those in the ministry, by the way. There are. But to the 99% of pastors, there isn't a single pastor that is not extremely aware of his limitations and his weaknesses. They're usually on display for everybody. And there isn't a pastor that's not aware of his family's limitations and his family's weaknesses. Satan always goes after a pastor through his family. Always, always, always, always, always, always. Because it's where he's the weakest. On the fourth day of Gettysburg, or the third day of Gettysburg, Lee had attacked the end of the line on the left flank and been repulsed in very bloody battle. On the second day, he'd attacked at the right flank. Again, extremely bloody battle. So he looked at his commander in the center and he said, take primarily North Carolina troops, a few Virginia troops, 15,000 men. and attack Seminary Ridge. Seminary Ridge was in the center of the line. And if you've ever been there, how many of you have ever been to Gettysburg? You can see in your vision that field. It's amazing that those men were willing to walk across that field near certain death. The high-water mark of the Confederacy is when the commanding general gets up on top of the wall where the Union was, and he puts his hat on his sword and waves it in the air for his troops who have been falling by the hundreds as they marched across that field. And he puts his hat on the top of that sword, and he waves it as a rallying point in the smoke. And as he does that, he is shot and killed on that wall. But Lee's rationale was that I've weakened the flank on the right and the left, and he's reinforced those, and so the Union general will have nothing, and I can attack in the middle, drive the Union side by side, and the path is clear for me to drive from the north into Washington, D.C., about 75 miles away. We know good generalship always attacks the weakest link, and in a pastor's life, his person and his family is always his weakest link. It's always his weakest link. Of course, Paul didn't have a family. So all they could do was attack his person. And Paul had to say this. What a powerful testimony that we can all take when we go through the times in which Satan is so real to us and attacking us. He says, therefore, most gladly, I will rather boast in my infirmities. I know I'm not a good speaker. So, I'm not a good speaker, he would say. I will boast to my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Because if I stood up and told you I'm something that I'm not, then I'm in the flesh. But when I say, look, I know how weak I am. Then the power of Christ rests upon me and nobody ever says, wow, Paul did that. It's like, how would that little, short, balding, Jewish guy who hobbled around because of all the broken bones, how did he write half the Bible in the New Testament? I often said as we were building this church and moving to this campus, one miracle after another, I was recounting several of them. Larry Templeton had me telling stories a couple weeks ago in new members class of just the move and the miracle. I remember saying many times to our congregation, nobody's ever gonna say, when they look at this church and this complex, that Mike Sprola, the deacons, the pastors built that, because no one's gonna ever, that know us, is ever gonna say that because they know we're not that smart. To God be the glory. They know we're not that bright. To God be the glory. To God be the glory. He says, I would boast to my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. The minute I boast about how great I am, God's power leaves me. Therefore I take pleasure. Wow. I'm not sure the health and wealth gospel folks like this verse. I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. I call this Paul's crisis, number one, because I had concern, competition, complete transparency, conviction. I had a bunch of C's going, so I had to come up with another C, you know, to make it alliterated. I'm not sure where all of Paul's crisis and ministry were. He definitely had one at Troas, because he tells us he had no rest and he was up all night waiting for Timothy to come from word from Corinth. We see in his writings a few of, this I think may be his greatest crisis. Three times, no place else in scripture do we read that Paul begged God for a personal, please let it not be like this any longer. Please, please, please, please. I can hear Paul saying, if he's in our vernacular, but God, this is so left-handed to me. I took the personality sorter, and I just, this is not, this isn't me. This isn't, I'm not good at this, God. Please, please take these people out of my life. And God said, no, I've blessed you so much that I never want you to think that you did it. And these people will remind you how weak you are because they'll pick at you all the time. Wow. That's some heavy theology. That really is. Some of you, it's just going out over your head. You're like, oh. You don't even get it. That's heavy stuff. Because are you willing for God to say about you and your life, no, my grace is sufficient for what you're asking for and I want you to have to live the rest of your life with that infirmity, with that difficulty, with that, so that you'll learn to depend upon me and not yourself. That's heavy theology, folks. Because, in fact, we have whole genres of theology. I just mentioned the health and wealth gospel. We have whole genres of theology that's saying, oh, if you're uncomfortable, you don't have enough faith, you haven't given me enough money. And yet, Paul is saying, I'm uncomfortable, and God is saying, and I want you to stay uncomfortable. My grace is sufficient. Are you willing to follow Paul's example? I'm so glad God chose to inscripturate this crisis in Paul's life. I don't know if it's one of those things, misery loves company, you know, kind of one of those things, but I am so glad that God chose to inscripturate this so that I would look at that and say, if the great apostle Paul was told by God, my grace is enough, then whatever I encounter in my life, God's grace is enough. If the great apostle Paul couldn't ring a yes out of God to get his way so his life would be more comfortable, then I'd be content. I should be content. Because in that middle of that discomfort, is where I find the power of God. Not outside of it, but in the middle of it. Father God, thank you so much for your word.