Again, I'd like to thank you for allowing me to come, bring you the word tonight. If you'll turn with me to 2 Corinthians 12, verses 1 through 10. 2 Corinthians 12, verses 1 through 10. Let me set this up. Paul is in In chapter 11, Paul is talking about the false apostles, the false teachers that he's having to deal with that's coming out of Corinth. Many of those who are claiming very special things happening to them, they're trying to really incite people to believe another gospel. And so we begin in 12, we see Paul continuing his defense of his ministry. He basically told them, listen, I have suffered greatly for the gospel. And then in 12, he does something a little unusual that we'll read about. And then he'll talk a little bit about his thorn in the flesh. So let me begin with verse 1 of chapter 12, 2 Corinthians. 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 am a man in Christ. I knew a man in Christ who 14 years ago was called up in the third heaven. Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know. God knows. I know that this man was called up into paradise, whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows. And I 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 by my weakness, though I should wish to boast. I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking of the truth. But if 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 becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of these revelations, a thorn was given to me in the flesh. a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it would 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 weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ then, I am content with weakness. insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities, for when I am weak, I am strong. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for these words, these words that both have a message and are encouragement to us in the gospel. Lord, be with your servant that he preaches. Lord, if anything he would say that is not according to your word, we pray that you wipe out the memory of your people. For it's in Christ's name I pray, amen. I grew up in Rock Hill, South Carolina, which is just south of Charlotte, North Carolina. And in between Rock Hill and Charlotte is a place called Fort Mill. And in Fort Mill, that's where my father was born. He was born at home in 1936. And the land that he was born in the 70s was bought by a ministry called PTL. Some of y'all may remember a guy named Jim Baker at the PTO Ministries. And Tammy Fay, yeah. And he is, and I had the privilege of growing up around that. From the beginning, when Jim and Tammy had a children's show on the 700 Club Channel. to the very end when he was put to jail. So I grew up around all that. And it was very interesting to watch during that time of the PTL ministries. And truly, I think in the early days, he was, Jim Baker was someone that had a sense of the gospel. Probably not in any Presbyterian way, but he had a sense of the gospel. He was, I think, You know, someone that was sincere. But as the ministry grew, the PTL ministry grew, and more money became coming in, you have to realize that in 1975, their budget, or the money that they raised, was $65 billion. That's like, you know, a quarter of a billion today, maybe. Something like that. You know, it's a huge difference. And so money was flowing in, they were doing all sorts of things in the ministry. And it is interesting to note, as the ministry began to change, certain things would change. For example, in the beginning, Tammy didn't wear a lot of makeup. And After a while, Tammy wore a whole counter of makeup, you know, if you remember those days. The name of the show that they started was the PTL Show, which was Praise the Lord Show. Well, they changed it, in the middle of it, called People That Love. And then by the end, it was the Jim and Tammy Show. So you began to see a sea change in how it went over the years. And as Jim became more and more famous, he began to develop a huge ego. And I can say this because I watched it from not very far. And also what would happen is the area that I lived in, if you were an evangelical Christian, you equaled Jim and Tammy. So when people moved in from, say, up north or anywhere else, and you would witness to them, oh, you're just like that Jim and Tammy guy, that Jim and Tammy couple. And so it kind of became a hindrance for the true gospel. And after a while, it was so difficult. In fact, there began to be parodies of it on radio stations in the area. People would also sort of mock the ministry. Instead of people that praised the Lord Club, it was Pastor Luke Club, you know, because they were constantly asking for money and stuff like that. Well, eventually, Jim had his downfall. And along with Jim, the church local had this downfall too, because they were constantly, especially media was constantly comparing us, good evangelical, reformed churches even, that were in the area. Now my church was a large church, we had 2,700 members. And we were constantly being compared to the PTL club, Jim and Tammy Baker. And of course with this downfall, he ended up in jail, he ended up, and believe it or not, He is preaching again and has his own TV show of what Christians don't learn. But this all began because he did something that he thought was sincere and his ego got the most of him and he ended up in a complete disaster, a complete disaster. And as we look at our pastors today, Paul is by far the most famous apostle of his age. He is in process of writing the Bible. He's in process of seeing advice to people all around us. He's also a target. And it's interesting as he deals with these false prophets who are the Jim and Tammy of their day, okay? He is aware of that even in himself. So let's look at this first here. It says, you know, Paul, as you look at this first part of 12, he sort of goes and talks about someone else, but I think it's him. I really do, and most commentators do so also. that he saw fantastic things, that the Lord was able to show him visions and revelations. And it probably happened 14 years before he wrote this. And he shared that these visions were so great that he wouldn't even talk about them, but he would mention them here. Because as he is trying to prove his ministries to these false prophets, these false apostles, he's saying, listen, I've seen things that you've never seen. I've seen things that you never have seen. And I boast of it, but I'm not gonna tell you where it is. Because he chooses not to boast in it, even though he can. Any of us that have seen great things. I met two presidents. Doesn't make me any special, especially one of them. But I won't say who that is. But I've met two presidents. And all of us have done certain things in our lives that you think, oh, I'm somebody. I was able to do this and I was able to do that. But Paul didn't want to do that. because he didn't want to act like these super apostles, these people who have come forward with certain things in their lives to prove their ministries and prove them better than Paul himself. He chose not to do that. See, the Lord was giving him this vision not to build Paul up in his reputation, but to encourage him personally. And Paul wanted to be presented as a genuine apostle, not one made up by visions and stuff. Young ministers will ask me certain questions. And they say, well, when will I know I'm a great preacher? I said, don't ask me, I'm not a great preacher. I said, but you'll know you're making effect on people. Not at the back door of the church, because everybody has their, you know, go to the back door and good message and stuff like that. It's the ones that you see crying that leave. Then you hit the nail on the head. It's the ones that call you later on because you've hit a certain nail in their lives that they needed to be, needed to be hit. And, and that they are, they're hurting about it spiritually. They'll call you into the middle of the week. It's the people that maybe later on that tell you, after years, that you said something in your sermon back, you know, 10 years ago. You know, that maybe is when you become an adequate preacher. But it's all about the Lord disusing you. And you pray that God does that. You know, I had people, I had people, one person, when I was in college, I was a friend, me and a guy became good friends. He came to my Bible study. I always thought he was a Christian. And then he joined our church and he stood up and gave his testimony one time and said, yeah, I became a Christian in Richard's Bible study. It was all news to me. And those are the great things. Those are the great things. Those are the things you want. You don't want to have notches on your Bible. You don't want to have things that make you a person that's great in people's eyes. You want that to be the Lord's preview. But we should always watch out for being proud, proudful of our knowledge and experiences. There is a time which knowledge and experience is important. You're debating somebody about Christianity, you're trying to do a good job at God's word and stuff like that. But it also can become a source of pride. A source of pride and egotism that must be checked. Many a preacher has been brought down by this. when their ego has gone off into somewhere in outer space, because they're such a great person with words, such a great person with all sorts of things. And it's something you just really have to watch out for. This type of personal pride takes the focus off the gospel, and that's what Paul was concerned with in all of this. And as you read behind the lines of these 10 verses, you see his concern is to take the focus of the teachers, Paul's teachers, off of him and make sure it's put on the gospel and Christ. Him and, you know, Christ and him crucified. That's what he was concerned about. That was he ultimately concerned about. It should, every preacher should be that way. And it puts it on, yeah, when that focus is taken off and put on the personality or a situation that, or something that's happening in the church, it takes away from the gospel. I have two examples I'm gonna give you. First is a good one. Many of y'all know Tim Keller. You may have read some of his books, PCA pastor, well-known, probably one of our most well-known pastors now. And recently he retired. And he did something that people couldn't believe. Several years ago, they had decided, Redeemer, which is the main church campus there in New York City, they decided they were going to take it and divide it into three parts. And people said, well, why do you want to do that? And Tim said, I don't want to leave America church. I don't want people to say Redeemer. In fact, I don't even name, they kept the name, maybe one of them did, but they divided the church in three parts. So it went from being a large church to being a fairly medium-sized church in New York City, three of them. And one of the reasons he didn't want to leave that is to leave a legacy that people would point back and say, Tim Keller did that. You know, I don't know many ministers, really good friends of mine, that would do that with their churches. Being willing to take apart something that they've been at for 25 years or 30 years, just because they might be put up as somebody special. Okay? But the bad example is this. Any of y'all know the Baptist preacher Charles Stanley? Okay. All right. Charles Stanley's secretary was the sister of our secretary at my church when I was in South Atlanta. So we knew what everything went on at First Baptist in Atlanta. Okay. And one of the things that was a rule at First Baptist in Atlanta that was There was no way you could break it. They would never hire a minister that had been divorced. And if you got divorced while you were there as a minister, you had to resign. There was no exceptions to that. And Charles Stanley's wife was, and this is all public, this is not gossip, this is all public, was somewhat a disturbed woman. And so during my time that I knew the people down there real well, she filed for divorce. And so the first badness went into her turmoil. And so Dr. Stanley said, well, I'm not going to step down, even though over the years, literally tens of hundreds of ministers have gone through there in the years they've been there. And anybody that was divorced had to leave. Not only that, but the people that were really fans of Charles Stanley, fed his ego and told him, this church will just wither and die away if you give it up. And it became a blight upon Christians, you know, keeping their word in Atlanta. Because he wouldn't give, in fact, his son, and what happened to him we won't get into, but his son, who was the youth director there at the time, laughed over it. Because he told his dad, Dad, you gotta resign. You're gonna be divorced. Not willing to keep up the witness, his ego, And people that fed his ego told him he was too important. And then they would talk about, and in fact, our church secretary was in that crowd. She would say to me, you know, God has gifted him so much, there's no way he can resign. He has to stay. That's the kind of thing that when you take yourself too seriously, when your ego goes ahead of you in ministry or in anything you do in life. You know, I see, you know, I'm up here on campus working with internationals, and I hear about professors up there sometimes. And I hear about professors who, you know, they work with their international students 50 hours a week sometimes. In fact, I just, and we'll call them out anytime during the night and stuff like that. It's all ego-driven. It's something you have to watch out for, and especially in ministry, especially in the church. You know, an elder can't get that way, a deacon can't get that way. Any church member can't get this way, where it's all about them and not about the gospel. I came to the conclusion many years ago that the gospel would do fine without me. It would do fine without me. And that's what keeps me humble. And so as we see here, Paul is trying to really set himself against those who would talk about fantastic visions, talk about how they can do this or that. But in fact, what Paul does is that he goes to our second part of our message, which is focus in on what God has done to him to keep him weak, to keep him weak. Look with me in verse seven. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given to me in the flesh. a messenger for Satan to harass me, to keep me from being conceited." This thorn in the flesh, it's sort of like what you read in the Old Testament. Often God, when the children of Israel would become great, would pare them down. Let me give you an example. Judges chapter seven in Gideon. Let me see if you know your Bible tonight. All right. How many, when Gideon was going to go against God's enemies, how many men did he start with? Y'all remember? Oh, you're close. 22,000. And then he began to pare them down. Why did he pare them down? That's right, would God be glorified? Because if he didn't pare it down, what would happen? Men would take credit for the victory. Oh, it's the greatness of our army, okay? The greatness of our army. It's how talented we are, okay? It's because a person is a great speaker. No, God would pare them down. And throughout the history of the Bible, God constantly does stuff like that. Think about the apostles. Any great guys there, they all had problems. One of the top leaders had a terrible temper. Peter we talked about this morning. Just all sorts of things. And they were fishermen, they stank. They were not people that you would gather around to go do great things. But God often takes weaker people and does great things. He really does. Often, people who really have preached the gospel, really have had an impact on the gospel, are people that also had thorns in the flesh. You know, one of the greatest preachers among our baddest folks is Spurgeon. But everybody acknowledges that Spurgeon suffered depression very often. And also struggled with it so much that he had to leave sometimes and go to the south of France to take time off. So he could work through this thorn in the flesh that he had. So that's what God did to Paul. He gave him a thorn in the flesh. Now, what do we think this was? Some people thought it was a physical ailment, like a eye problem, maybe. We get that from Galatians 4 and 5. Some think it was just the fact that you have opposition in the church. I've heard preachers sometimes refer to certain of the congregants as thorns in the flesh. You know, and stuff like that. And it may be just severe temptation like we have in Romans 7 in his life. And it's also interesting to me that Paul asked three times that the thorn be taken away from him. But the thorn was there for a reason. was there to remind Paul of who he is and who God is. It's not all about Paul. It's about the gospel. It's about the gospel. And that's the same thing with us. You know, I came to the conclusion many years ago that I'm not a great preacher. Never have been. And I had other good areas that I could minister people with. And I had to live with that. And so I knew that I would never have a huge church, but I knew that the people that I had there would be ministered to, they would be pastored. That people would always know their pastor would be there for them. So I had people that would leave because they would frankly, you're just not a good preacher. I said, that's fine. I wanna live with that. And other people are the same way. And you may be that also, that God has given you something that keeps you humble in some ways. Most men would joke their wives are that. And often my wife has come to me and said, listen, You're getting out of line here. And that's helpful for ministers, it is. But what is the result of this thorn in the flesh? The result simply is this, that Paul must rely on the grace of Jesus. And that's where we all are here. We, in our lives, have to be reminded that it's the grace of Jesus that will get us through difficult times. It is the grace of Jesus that will grow the church. It is the grace of Jesus and the gospel that will change people's lives. And it's not because I'm eloquent, it's not because we have great theology, which we do, but it's because of what Jesus can do to people that can change them. That can surely change them. You see, the thorn helps to keep us humble in the Lord. You know, humble in the Lord. And I know this from my very, my own life. Often, you know, I, you know, when I write my newsletter, I always like to have something that's really upbeat and okay. And it's, you know, the numbers are always going up and stuff like that. But I've learned that sometimes numbers don't go up. And I've learned that just because we only had 10 people at this, that a lot more ministry actually got done. Or, or if it's a hundred people, whatever. It keeps you humble. It also helps you know that it's not you. I remember one time we had an event up here, and I got so busy in the week, so busy in the week, that I forgot to tell Lynn to send a reminder notice out, because our students, you have to remind them of stuff. And I was ready to be devastated. Because it was something that I thought, oh, we're going to have a big crowd. It's going to be great. But without reminding them, nobody's going to show up. And at five minutes before, there was nobody there. Ministers can die by the numbers, by the way. And so I'm thinking, nobody's going to be here. Nobody's going to be here. And so I had actually cut back the food a little bit. Guess what happened to me? I didn't get a chance to eat that night. So many people came that there wasn't a sandwich left for me. And it reminded me to not put my faith in emails, not put my faith in these things or my abilities of writing emails or doing everything else or saying things on time. Remember, the Lord is the one that brings. It is him. It is him. It also teaches Paul to rest in the power of Christ and to not rely on his own abilities. Like Christ humbled himself by death on the cross. So we humble ourselves to Christ and his power. You know, Paul delights in the things that show he is weak and says he must turn to Christ. Only when he is weak can he be strong. And so it is with us that even though we are weak now, it's only that weakness that builds us up for other things for later on. Now how do I apply this? First, pride can be the fall of many. And I think that even that in the reform world, it's especially so. Because we have it all figured out. And I'm not making light of this, but it's been my observation that a lot of things that have come up recently that have been bad theology has come from reformed people, and especially those who take themselves as the final word. And it's hard. I mean, if you're, if you are a great preacher or you're a great, uh, theologian, you have to be constantly watching out for the stuff like this. Or if even you're sitting in the pew here, you know, uh, I had, um, I had a dear lady in my church in Albany. She was a reform to the tilt, and she was a delightful lady and was very hospitable and everything, except of just a few things. And one of them was greeting visitors. And this is how she would greet visitors. She said, oh, where are you from? Oh, I'm from so-and-so. That's delightful. And she would do a great job greeting visitors. And she said, well, what's your church background? Well, we're Baptist. She'll say, oh, what are you doing here? We're a reformed church. And oh, gosh. I finally got her to stop doing that. But pride can be a problem. Secondly, the more we rely on our strength, the harder it is for the Lord to use us. If you're very talented in an area, in ministry, no matter who you are, watch your pride in that area. Because sometimes you think your strength can take you on. and it can't. It won't last. It won't last. Thirdly, the thorn is put in our lives that causes us to flee to Christ and His power. You know, where you're weak, where God has placed this thorn, it means that you have to rely on Him more and more every day. Now, there are people who are tremendous Christians And they have thorns, whether it be something physical, something they struggle with sin-wise in their lives. And they're reminded constantly that they have to rely on the gospel and rely on Christ. Also, our thorn shapes us into the type of believer that the Lord wants. It did with Paul. It kept his ego in check. So it can do with us. And finally, something that's counterintuitive to the world. Weakness is a blessing, not a curse. Okay? Weakness is a blessing and not a curse. When you're a believer, weakness is a blessing. When you rely on Jesus, when you put your faith in him, When you are more concerned with him and how he is portrayed in the world than your own self, then it becomes a strength. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you, Lord, for this night. We pray, Lord, that you'll be with us as we leave here. Lord, help us to always think in terms of the strength we have in Jesus, not in our abilities, not in ourselves. For it's in Christ's name I pray, amen.