The Experience Community
2 Corinthians - Chapter 12 (J. Brooker 7-7-24)
Well, good morning. How are we? It's good. Good to see you. For those of you who have not met yet, my name is Josh Booker, and I pastor our campus in Cannon County. And I guess the rumor mill has it that I've been labeled as a closeted redneck. Is that what people are saying? So just because I know the location of every shownis and ponderosa steakhouse in the continental US, if that makes me a redneck guilty as charged. So anyway, hey, if your your wonder record is he will be back next week. After 15 years of fateful ministry, we convinced him finally to take some much needed rest away with his family. So yeah, thank God for that. And so yeah, so he will be back next week, but for the next three and a half hours, you're stuck with me. So buckle up, right? If you have a Bible, I hope you do. Second Corinthians is where we will be this morning. Second Corinthians, chapter 12, we will be going chapter by chapter verse by verse through chapter 12 today. We've been in second Corinthians for the past few months. And this is a letter from the Apostle Paul to a church in the city of Corinth. And this is a letter where Paul is writing it for a number of reasons. But one of the reasons that we've seen over the past few chapters is Paul is having to re-establish his apostolic credibility in the eyes of some. There's been some accusations and some slanders that have been made against Paul. And so if you were with us last week in chapter 11, Paul begins to talk about some of the false teachers. He sarcastically calls them the super apostles who were coming in and saying that Paul is spiritually inferior. He's not as spiritual as they are. And so last week, we talked about this thing called humility and how a true Christian who is humble pursues Jesus and doesn't boast on themselves or other boast on Jesus. And so as we go into chapter 12, this is, by the way, perhaps the most famous chapter in the entire book of second Corinthians. One of the things that these false teachers and these false apostles had done is they had boasted in their spiritual superiority because of visions and revelations from the Lord that they had supposedly seen. And they were taking these unverifiable claims of esthetics, supernatural experiences, and they were using those things to build a platform to tell people, "We're spiritually superior. You should listen to us. You shouldn't listen to Paul." So Paul says, "Okay, let's talk about visions and revelations from the Lord." And then Paul shares an experience that God gave him 14 years before he wrote this passage where God showed him a vision of the third heaven. We read that and we go, "Wow, how amazing it is. That's awesome." Paul says, "Well, then God decided he needed to keep me humble. And so to keep me humble, God allowed a messenger of Satan, a thorn in the flesh, to torment me and keep me humble." Paul says, "I'm going to rejoice in this because his grace is perfected in my weakness." You know, the Christian face is full of a lot of different paradoxes. The paradox that says, "If you really want to live, you've got to die to yourself. If you really want to find your life, you've got to be willing to lose your life." One paradox that we see in this passage is that we are strong as spiritually when we realize that apart from God's grace and power at working our lives, we are absolutely nothing. And Paul reminds us of that in a very, very dramatic way today. So if you have your Bible, I hope you do. We're going to start in verse one and work our way through, but will you go to the Lord with me in prayer before we open the word? Father, God, all across this room, we come to this text from different places. Lord, some of us, we have had a fantastic week and we come to this text. Lord, feeling pretty good. Others of us, God, we are in the midst of struggle and pain and hardship and trial. And so Lord, we pray this morning that your Holy Spirit would minister to us and give us exactly what it is we need in the way that you choose to give it. We pray, God, for those that need to be encouraged, that they would be encouraged through your word. I pray for those that need to be humbled through your word, that you would humble us this morning. And in all things, God, would you show us less of ourselves and more of Jesus? We pray for every church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, God, bigger than us, small than us, different from us. As long as they're preaching and proclaiming this gospel that Jesus is Lord, would you bless them? Would you grow them? And would you help us to be united under one name, the name Jesus? We love you, we praise you. And it's in Jesus' name. We ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Look, if you will, verse 1, chapter 12, Paul the Apostle is writing and he says, "Bosting is necessary. It is not profitable, but I will move on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who was caught up to the third heaven 14 years ago. Whether he was in the body or out of the body, I don't know. God knows. I know that this man, whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know. God knows, was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a human being is not allowed to speak. I will boast about this person, but not about myself except of my weaknesses." So Paul's character and his integrity as a minister were under assault from his critics there in the city of Corinth. And his critics were being led astray by false teachers that in chapter 11, Paul very sarcastically referred to as the super apostles. And so Paul has been, over the course of the last few chapters, defending his ministry credentials against those who were claiming that he was inferior to these false teachers. And so when defending his ministry credentials, we get to sense in verse 1, Paul is kind of getting tired of talking about himself. He says in verse 1, "Bosting is necessary, but it is not profitable." What does that mean? Well, he kind of thinks it's silly. This is a really dumb game of trying to talk about his credentials and why you should listen to him. But he says it's kind of necessary. He has to reestablish his credibility before these believers so they will listen to him as a voice of truth in their lives. So he moves on to visions and revelations. Why is he moving on to visions and revelations from the Lord? Well, most likely these false teachers do what many false teachers in our day and age do. It is that they had claimed visions and revelations of ecstatic supernatural experiences as proof of their superior spiritual authority, and they had built their platform around these things, and they were using them to mislead believers in the city of Corinth. And so Paul says, let's talk about visions and revelations. Very reluctantly, Paul shares in the third person about an experience he'd had 14 years earlier. He says, "I know a guy." Now, how do we know he's talking about himself? Well, if you go down to verse 7, Paul kind of spills the beans, it's him, right? But he's reluctant to make it about him. He says it's not really about me, but 14 years ago, this guy, he had this experience where he was caught up, the Greek word is harposo, which is where we get the word rapture. He was caught up into the third heaven. Now, what is the third heaven? Well, in Hebrews thought you would have the atmospheric heaven, the place where the birds and the clouds are, the celestial heaven, where the stars and the sun and the moon are, and then the third heaven would be the place of God's dwelling. You don't get to the third heaven unless you are summoned there by God himself. And this is where Paul goes. Now, what happened 14 years earlier? Well, if you cross-reference the epistles, the letters that Paul wrote with the account of his ministry in the book of Acts, we read about this very interesting account in the city of Lystra in Acts chapter 14. Paul is in the city of Lystra, preaching the gospel in the Jews of the city. They take him out of the city and they send it to death through stoning. And they stone him to death. Now, just so you know, being stoned to death in the Bible is like getting rockstone at your head, right? Some of you have probably got stoned to death. No, different kind of stoning to death, right? Because I think it's rockstone in his head. And the text says they think he's dead. So they drag him out and they think he's dead. The believers lay their hands and they start to pray for him. And then he wakes up and then he says, let's go back in the city and preach the gospel. Now, I can't say for certain, I guess when we get to heaven, we can ask him, but it kind of seems to me like when Paul is presumed dead after having rockstone at his head, he might have had a near-death experience. And he says, I'm not even sure if I was in my body. I'm not sure if I was out of my body. I don't know whatever it was, man. When I was there in the presence of God in the third heaven, I saw and I heard things so wonderful. They were inexpressibles through the confines of human language. There's a Christian writer by the name of John Burke, who wrote a book called Imagine Heaven. He also wrote a book called Imagine the God of Heaven. And John Burke has interviewed about 1500 individuals who report near-death experiences. And remarkably, what they report aligns with the truth of Scripture. Everything they saw, everything they experienced. And here's one of the things that he finds really fascinating is research. When he talks to people who've had a near-death experience, they have a really hard time articulating just what it is they experienced in that place. They say things like, I felt more alive than I've ever felt, or it felt more real than the reality we're living in right now. Are they say all of our senses of sight and smell and sound and touch and taste? It was like all of those senses were blended together. And it was like I was in this different dimension that was more vibrant. And I can't even describe to you how good and how beautiful and how amazing it was. And Paul says it was inexpressible. Not not only that, God wouldn't even permit him to speak of it. Now, who is this nameless man? Well, it's Paul. And Paul certainly has something to boast in if we're going to play this game of boasting. But instead, Paul says, I'm not going to boast in that. I'll boast in my weaknesses. Not this strange, wonderful experience. Man, what a contrast between Paul's ministry and life and the ministry of these super apostles, those who were dazzling and impressing their gullible victims to these very unverifiable claims of the supernatural. But we can be sure that like many false teachers of our day and age that there's always a price tag attached to them sharing these accounts of these unverifiable, supernatural experiences. Paul could have built his ministry on these things. The book of Acts tells us he had six different visions, but that's not what Paul built his platform and his ministry around. What was Paul's life and ministry built on? I wasn't visions and revelations. It was Jesus. It was the gospel of Jesus Christ, the truth of who Jesus was and what Jesus has done. You know, sometimes God does give certain people profound personal spiritual experiences. I've met enough people where I've talked about how they came to know the Lord or as they've been walking with Jesus, some things that God has done in their lives. And it's amazing to me just to hear it. Man, we serve a big God. And sometimes he does give certain people these very profound personal spiritual experiences. But we got to understand anytime God gives that to someone, it's just that. It's a gift of God's sovereign grace. We don't earn it. Not something that gives us because we're somehow more spiritual than the people next to us. And those things God gives, not so that we can glorify ourselves or boast on our own spiritual status. As a matter of fact, sometimes God might not even want us to share them. And this is what we see in the case of the Apostle Paul. For 14 years, God didn't permit him to speak of these things. You know, our faith is not to be built on these things. But rather, our faith is to be built on the truth and the person and the work of Christ as revealed to us in his word. Amen? Let's keep going. Look, if you will, at the next part, for six. For if I want to boast, I wouldn't be a fool because I would be telling the truth. But I will spare you so that no one can credit me with something beyond what he sees in me or hears from me, especially because of the extraordinary revelations. Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself. A thorn in the flesh was given to me. A messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness. Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong." Listen, if you're a Christian, God has an agenda and a program for your life. And it's not that you would be comfortable and you'd be happy and you would have a convenient, easy life where you get everything you want from God, when you want it, how you want it. Jesus is not your butler and Jesus is not your genie. God has something more for you. And what he has for you is he wants you to look like Jesus and he wants you to bear spiritual fruit. And because he's a perfect father, because he's all-knowing, because he's sovereign, he knows exactly what you need when you need it and he knows how to give it. He knows when you need blessings and when you need encouragement and he knows how to give you blessings and encouragement when you need it, how you need it, and he knows when you need trials and when you need difficulties. Now, some of us here in that, we go, "I don't think I ever need trials and difficulties, right? I need old blessings and all encouragement. I don't need no trials. I don't need no do. Who needs that, right?" Well, the truth is we all need that because the trials and difficulties that God allows in our lives keep us humble. The trials and the difficulties that God allows in our lives, it grows us up. It matures us. It toughens us up sometimes. When we're squeezed, what it is that's inside of us comes out. And when we go through hard times, that's what strengthens our character. But more than anything, trials and difficulties teach us what it means to be dependent on God and not on our own strength. And so God gives Paul this incredible blessing of vision of the third heaven. He sees things and hears things and he experiences things that are inexpressible in the confines of human language. And he comes back from that and he goes, "Wow, I just saw the presence of God. I was in the third heaven. Wow." And then God says, "All right, let's keep Paul humble." God allows a messenger of Satan to torment Paul so that he will not exalt himself. And Paul calls it his thorn in the flesh. Who's heard of this before, thorn in the flesh? Maybe you referred to a co-worker this week as a thorn in the flesh, right? Now, what is the thorn in the flesh? Well, here's the truth. We don't know. Paul doesn't say, in time you hear a Bible teacher with theologians claim to know what the thorn in the flesh is, they're not telling the truth. We don't know. We won't know until we get to glory. But it could be a lot of different things. It could be perhaps a physical ailment. Paul frequently refers to his physical weaknesses. Some scholars think it was perhaps poor eyesight. The book of Galatians at the end of that letter, Paul says, "See what large letters I have written you with my own hands." And in chapter 4 verse 15, he says, "You love me so much that if you were able to, you would have plucked out your eyes and given your eyes to me." Almost as if to say, "You saw that my eyes didn't work too great and you were willing to, if you were able to, give me your eyes." So it could be that he had physical ailments. It could be had chronic pain. It could be he was blind. Some scholars have suggested that perhaps this is his way of referring to his critics or his enemies or his opponents. There is nothing that keeps you humble more than a good critic, right? Because if everybody likes you, you might get the impression that you're awesome, right? Everybody loves me. I'm awesome, right? And then it just takes that one guy or that one gal that's like, "Actually, no, you're not," right? And then that causes us to look in the mirror and say, "Well, maybe I'm not." That causes us to hit our knees and cry out to God and say, "God, maybe I'm not. Help me. Humble me. Make me dependent on you." And perhaps this is what Paul's referring to. Still other scholars think that perhaps this is quite literal. He says, "A messenger of Satan." It could have been quite literally that, a demonic attack in Paul's life. Perhaps severe temptation. Others have said perhaps emotional or mental torment. Do you remember Paul's life before he came to faith in Christ? He was a persecutor of the church. He was present at the death of the first Christian martyr. And so perhaps as Paul laid down to sleep at night and he closed his eyes, it was visions of that kind of violence that played through his head. And Satan would capitalize on that and torment Paul mentally and torment Paul emotionally. And whatever it is, I guess we'll find out when we get to heaven, Paul wasn't a fan. Paul's a man of great faith and he cries out to God three separate times. Lord, take this away. Take this away. Take this away. I don't want this in my life. This hurts. This is hard. You know what God says? No. No. I just need to point this out. I have come across Christians over the past 10 years of ministry that have said things to me like anything that we declare and decree in prayer can be ours if we just have enough faith. Name it. Claim it. Blab it and grab it. Speak it into existence. Faith is what creates our tomorrow. Bless God, right? Okay. What do you do with verse eight? I mean, for real, honest question. If Paul's a man of faith, if Paul loves Jesus, if you can have anything you pray, if you have just enough faith, what do you do with verse eight? Paul prays and says, God, take it away. And God says, no. You know, God loves us too much to say yes to the things we ask for. Sometimes. Sometimes he says, no. Sometimes he says later. Sometimes he says, wait. Sometimes he says not now. To Paul, he says, no. Why? Because God had something that's better in mind for Paul. God had a revelation of his own grace and a revelation of his own power for Paul. And that was perfected in Paul's weakness. You know, some of us are naturally inclined to be self-reliant. And we're naturally inclined to think we're a lot stronger than we actually are. And we live in a world that pumps out that message to us consistently day in and day out and day in and day out. If you want to be successful, it's up to you. You've got to be strong. You've got to power up. You've got to make it happen. It's the shirtless guy in his Instagram reel with a weighted best running. Rise and grind, bro. Let's make that bread, right? Six-figure income before lunch, right? And you're like, yeah, that's going to happen. Yeah, I do my cold plunge at 28 degrees, right? Oh, yeah, all right. Ooh, right? And listen, man, yeah, rise and grind, hustle his muscle. Do what you, right? I mean, work hard. Yes, and amen to that. Look at me. That was not intended. No, no, no, no, no. You missed me. I was saying, look at me. I was going to say something. And I said, look at me. Clearly, there is not a rise and grind going on, right? Oh, my Lord, that was too funny. Here's what I was going to say. I asked you to look at me, not so I could say, here's an example of someone who doesn't rise and grind. I was going to tell you that you're not God, right? Do you know that? Some of you don't. Some of you live like you think you are. So you're going to make things happen on your own because you're God. You're somehow the master of your own destiny. That's hogwash. You're not. You're not God. You're not as strong as you think you are, man. Right? I mean, yeah, work hard. Yes. I mean, do your, do your cold plunges. Yeah, amen to that, right? But you got to come to a certain point in your life where God creates in you an awareness of your own weakness and your own inadequacy that you're not God and you need him. And that's hard and that's painful. And some of us, we don't like that. But the truth is God loves us so much that he knows how to reveal this truth to you. And he reveals this truth to us by exposing us to our own weakness, our own inadequacy. He sometimes our own failure. Some of us go, well, how is that loving? Listen, you can't truly believe that God's grace is sufficient for you until God brings you to a place where you realize that you were insufficient in yourself. And as long as you think that you've got it all and you got it all together and you're strong and you're strong and everybody else you know, man, you're not going to come to a place where you think you need the grace of God. So through our weaknesses, through our failure, through our inadequacies, through our limitations as difficult, as painful, as embarrassing, as humiliating as sometimes they are, God is doing something in those things. God is building our reliance on him. And when we're totally dependent and reliant on him, we begin to see our difficulties as opportunities for God's power to show up and work in our lives. And we can say, as Paul said, "For when I am weak, then I am strong." I want you to notice something. Paul never lets his thorn and he never lets his weakness, his difficulties, and his hardships. He never lets that act as an excuse to not serve and follow Jesus. You know, as American Christians, we are so quick to let the difficulties in our lives serve as lame excuses that sideline us and incapacitate us from serving God and loving people and living the Christian life. The irony of American Christianity is we have more resources than a hundred other nations put together when it comes to spiritual resources. And we have a hundred times more excuses than any other ten nations put together. Excuse us for why we can't make it to church. Excuse us why we can't serve in church. Excuse us why we can't get a life group. Excuse me. We go on and on and on and on and on and on. The truth is Paul had something massive in his life he could have used and he doesn't. Because he understands we can be strong in our weakness. And this is the great paradox of the Christian faith. And it's this, we're strongest spiritually when we're weak. We're strongest spiritually when we realize, man, we got nothing apart from God's grace that work in our lives. We've got nothing. And we are weakest spiritually when we live under the delusion of our own strength. That's what makes us spiritually weak. And if you read the Bible, what you find is that God has a track record of not choosing those who think they're awesome, not choosing those who are puffing out their chest at how great they are. And they think they've got something to add to God, but rather those who are weak and poor and insignificant and unnoticed. Those are the people that God picks to do mighty things. Are you still with me? Two of you. All right. Verse 11, "I have been a fool. You've forced it on me. You ought to have commended me since I am not in any way a figure to these super apostles, even though I am nothing. The signs of an apostle were performed with unfailing endurance among you, including signs and wonders and miracles. So in what way are you worse off than the other churches except that I personally did not burden you? Forgive me for this wrong." You know, in defending his authority as an apostle, Paul has been forced to boast more than he's wanted to. He's like, I don't think this is profitable. I mean, this is just kind of dumb having to talk about my credentials, but you guys kind of forced me to do it because they didn't show him the proper honor and respect that they needed to show him as a spiritual leader in their lives. And to Paul, boasting like this is the very definition of foolishness. Bosting like this is what makes somebody a fool. Listen, if you're a Christian that boasts in how spiritually superior or other Christians, you pick the wrong religion for that, right? The whole premise of Christianity is built on the idea that you were so broken and full of sin and corruption you couldn't save yourself, and you needed to save your name Jesus to come in and do the work for you couldn't do for yourself. Welcome to Christianity, right? So if you want to be somebody that puffs out your chest about how spiritual you are, go be a Hindu, go be a Muslim, but don't be a Christian and walk around thinking you can do that because that's incompatible with the Christian gospel. Paul says, listen, you're not going to show me proper honor and respect as the apostle. I'm going to have to play this game of giving you reasons for why you've got to listen to me. One of the reasons that Paul should have been honored and received as an apostle is because he performed the signs of an apostle in their midst. What is that? Well, the Holy Spirit empowered Paul supernaturally to perform signs and wonders and miracles that authenticated his apostolic authority and authenticated his standing as an eyewitness of the risen resurrected Jesus. And Paul had come into the city of Corinth and these amazing, miraculous, supernatural things that happened and yet these same believers years later seemed to forget all about that. You know, it can be easy for us to see God do something amazing in our lives, answer a prayer, move in power, do something awesome, and then we just kind of take it for granted, right? We kind of move on. We get distracted. The other things happen. Maybe we listen to some lies of our culture. Maybe we chalk up that mighty move of God to something else and we move on from that. And that's why it's so easy for us to get distracted and short-sighted. And that's why it's so important for us to do what we're doing right now, to stay connected to God, to remind ourselves of who we are, to study the Word of God together, to sing together, to encourage one another, to pray together. We need to be reminded of who we are and stay connected together to the Lord. So Paul didn't deserve the disrespect that was shown to him. The only reason that the Corinthians were slandering and criticizing Paul is because they'd been poisoned by the false teachers. And Paul says, "I haven't treated you any different than any other church." I mean, the only way I've treated you different or worse off than the other churches is that I've not been a financial burden to you. That Paul did not raise financial support from the Corinthians when he was there planting this church. And Paul sarcastically says to these believers, "Oh, I am so sorry, forgive me for this wrong. Excuse me, right? I didn't take any money from you. How awful I must be for that." This is Paul reminding them, "You guys have really no reason to criticize and slander me as your leader." But let's look at this last part. Look at the will of verse 14. We'll read to the end of the chapter. "Look, I'm ready to come to you this third time. I will not burden you since I am not seeking what is yours, but you, for children not not save up for their parents, but parents for their children. I will most gladly spend and be spent for you. If I loved you more, am I to be loveless?" Now, granted, I did not burden you yet sly as I am. I took you in deceit verse 17. "Did I take advantage of you by any of those I sent you? I urged Titus to go and I sent the brother with him. Titus didn't take advantage of you, did he? Didn't we walk in the same spirit and in the same footsteps? Have you been thinking all along that we were defending ourselves to you? No, in the sight of God, we are speaking in Christ, and everything dear friends is for building you up. For I fear that perhaps when I come, I will not find you to be what I want, and you may not find me to be what you want. Perhaps there will be quarreling, jealousy, angry outbursts, selfish ambitions, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder. I fear that when I come, my God will again humiliate me in your presence, and I will grieve for many who sinned before and have not repented of the moral impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality they practiced." So the false apostles had apparently warned the Corinthians that when Paul returned to the city of Corinth, what he was going to try to do was drain them of their financial resources. And Paul was being painted by his critics as a deceiver who just wanted their money. And Paul says in verse 14, "I'm not looking to take your money. I just want you. I want a relationship with you." The very heart of Christian ministry and service is shown to us in verse 15. Look at verse 15. He says, "I will most gladly spend and be spent for you." What does that mean? It means this. Paul was not serving for what he could get from the church, but for what he could give to the church. And for the sake of these believers, he says, "Listen, I will gladly spend and be spent." All of these slanderous charges made against Paul that he was being sly, that he was taking them by deceit. Paul says, "Hey, remember when Titus and the other brother came to you to collect funds for the church in Jerusalem? They came and men, they were honest. They had a track record of integrity." And Paul says, "Listen, we're walking in the same spirit with them, so why are you bringing these charges against me when you know that track record in the past of honesty and integrity?" I think it's interesting that Paul doesn't demand trust from these believers without first giving them a reason to trust him. Trust in any relationship, whether it's a dating relationship, whether it's a friendship, whether it's a work relationship, or whether it's a church or ministry relationship. It's not something that is freely given. It is something that has to be built. Are you listening? How do we build trust? Trust is something that's built over time through consistent actions, through transparency, through integrity, and through honesty. And when any of those four things is lacking, there is most likely an absence of trust in that relationship. Sometimes I get so weary when I have conversations with people and a couple might say to me, "Well, he tells me to trust him, but he never lets me look at his phone and he's really secretive and he says, 'You should just trust me.'" Listen, if that's you, man, can you look me for a second? If you want people to trust you, be trustworthy. If you got nothing to hide, stop hiding. If that's you and you're like, "Man, can I trust that person? I don't know. There's a track record that's not great. Can I trust him? Can I? Listen, if you're struggling to know how to trust someone, take a look at their track record and make a wise judgment. This is all that Paul's asking of these Corinthians. Take a look at my track record and make a wise judgment. You can trust me. You've just been led astray by people who are slandering me. This is what Paul is saying. So Paul's defensive is character. He says in verse 19, "It's not about me just defending myself. This isn't just about Paul. It's about Paul's ministry that proclaim the truth of Christ, that builds up the churches to keep them healthy." Speaking of building up a healthy church, Paul's concerned that he comes to visit them for the third time, he's going to find some of the same old problems that had plagued the Corinthian church when he visited them previously. The reason he'd written his first letter, if you want a cross-section of what those problems are, verse 20 and verse 21, tell us what those problems are. Paul writes of quarreling and jealousy and angry outburst, selfish ambitions, slander, gossip, arrogance, disorder. You can be sure that if any of these things are showing up in your life on a consistent basis, that is an indicator that either you don't actually know Jesus or you're not walking with Jesus. And this is the fruit of very immature, self-centered Christians who weren't truly following Christ. And Paul is saying, "I'm really concerned that when I come to visit you for this next time, that it's not going to be good for you. You're not going to like what you see. I'm not going to like what I see. This is not going to be good, so he's urging them once more near the end of chapter 12, repent. Get those things right with God before I come visit you for the third time. My wife, Jenny, is an incredible woman. She's a mother of three. She's a hospice nurse. She's incredible if you've ever met her. But one of the things she does that's remarkable is she makes amazing cakes. Unbelievable. She made a flourless chocolate cake with chocolate ganache over the top of it. I think I said that right. Ganoush, ganache, ganeshia, sure. Whipped cream, strawberries, legit, life-changing. For my birthday, every single year, she makes a carrot cake with cream cheese icing. And this isn't just any carrot cake. People who have had this carrot cake, they will every year for my birthday text me and say, hey, happy birthday, man. And I know what they're trying to do is just get a slice of my carrot cake. And to get on that list, to get a slice of my carrot cake, you have to have done something through the year to please me. That's how you get on that list. My birthday's in December, just saying it. There's a while, right? And maybe that's my thorn in the flesh. I'm married to a woman who knows how to make good cakes. So God's like, let's keep him humble. Let's make him shabby. Let's give him a woman who knows how to make good cakes, right? I've watched my wife bake sometimes, and here's what I find very interesting. Sometimes she puts ingredients in cakes that I don't think belong in cakes. She puts sugar, and I'm like, absolutely sugar, flour, absolutely. And then she puts salt. And I'm like, salt in cakes. She's like, yeah, salt. And baking soda. Like baking soda and salt in a cake. But any of those ingredients, if you just isolated them, it wouldn't be a cake, right? If it was just salt and baking soda, that's inedible, that's nasty. That's not a cake. But if it's also just butter, like unless you're Paula Deen, that's not a cake either, right? When you mix all of them together, though, it makes something beautiful. And because my wife sees the big picture, she sees the whole recipe. She sees the outcome. She sees not just this one particular moment of putting in that one ingredient, she sees a perfect blend of all the ingredients together and just the right amount. She knows that that's going to create something beautiful. Now, at the risk of sounding irreverent, we serve a sovereign, merciful, loving father who sees the outcome of your life, and he sees the big picture more than you can see. And maybe right now, there's some elements of your life that you go, man, I don't understand why it's got allowing this. This is bitter. This isn't sweet. This is hard. This is painful. God, why are you allowing this in my life? But we have to know that God sees way more than we see. And sometimes he allows the hardship and he allows the difficulty to create something in us that cannot be created through anything else. And the Christian life sometimes is sweet, beautiful, amazing blessings and encouragement. Sometimes it is, like Paul described, inexpressible joy and beauty in the presence of God. And then other times, it's storms on the flesh. But listen, it's not always visions of heaven. I've been a Christian since the year 2000, I've been walking with Jesus for 24 years now. I grew up in church. Was a church kid. I didn't really know Jesus. I was a rebel against God and I wanted my own way. I knew how to play the church game. I knew how to keep everybody fooled. But I was sexually perverse. I was self-centered. And I wanted nothing to do with Christ in his kingdom. I was trying to use Jesus to get from him what I wanted. And that was, I wanted his magic secret to heaven that I didn't want him. And in God's infinite mercy and grace, he showed me the true state of my soul that I was on the broad road that led to hell in the kingdom of darkness. And he saved me and changed me. It was 24 years ago. Now listen, in 24 years, I can count on one hand the amount of profound personal spiritual experiences that God has given me. One hand, maybe four, maybe five. You know what it is most of the time, the Christian life? It's like a Monday, right? Eugene Peterson called it a long obedience in the same direction. Then we wake up on a Monday morning and we go, man, I'm tired. But God, this is truth. There's a lot of lies out there. There's a lot of vanity out there. There's a lot of explanations for how we got here and where we're going and why we're here. And none of them are adequate. It's in you and you alone, oh Lord, where there is truth and where is life and you're what I need. And so I come before you this morning, Lord, and I'm just saying, God, everything that you want for me today, I want what you want. And it's not always visions of heaven. Sometimes it's pain and hardship and difficulty and monotony. Some of you might be going through a difficult season right now. It feels like thorns. It feels like torment and you're going, man, is this? I don't see how this is good for me. Number one, but is this ever going to end? Well, you serve a perfect father that knows exactly what you need, when you need it and how you need it. And he sends around blessing and encouragement right when you need it. But here's the deal. What makes Christianity so beautifully unique is that we believe there is a sovereign God who is fashioning a plan and a purpose for our lives. And he's fashioning that plan and purpose of our lives by allowing some pain. And the pain kicks in and we go, man, I don't know how much more of this that I can take. And then God allows some triumph. And we see God moving in triumph and we go, this is amazing. This is awesome. And then God allows some difficulty. And out of the difficulty, we find ourselves getting discouraged. And then God allows some blessings in our life. And we see blessings in our life. And we kind of start getting arrogant. We start exalting ourselves because of that blessing. And then God allows some trials and some difficulty. And then God allows some victory. But he's the one writing the story, not us. And the quicker we get it through our thick skull that we are not in control, God is. Two things come out of it. Two things you can't really fake. You can try it, but nobody believes you. And the first is this humility. True humility is not hanging your head. And I'm just awful. I'm terrible. And so we got it. No, maybe it's just this acknowledgement that like we're not in control. And we're not as powerful as we try to imagine we are, as we try to posture ourselves as being to the people around us. That's true humility. And have you know, we never like fully arrive at this, the side of eternity, right? Any Christian you meet, it's like, no, no, I'm just nailing it in the humility department. Well, right? If you're humble and you know what then you're not, right? We're never going to arrive. But when we're walking in a place of humility, here's what we understand. We can't be solely credited for the good things and blessings that come out of our lives. God blesses us. God gives us good things. Wow, praise God. That's God that did that. But we understand we're not in control. God is, it breeds something else that we desperately need in our day and age. And that is security. It feels like every conversation I have as a pastor, somehow in that conversation, someone discloses and shares with me that they're struggling with anxiety and fear, anxiety and fear, anxiety and fear, anxiety and fear. Everywhere we look, anxiety and fear, anxiety and fear, turn on the news, anxiety and fear, anxiety and fear, anxiety and fear. You know, in the midst of the instability and the craziness of our world, we can find ourselves in a place spiritually where we can rest in the storms of this life. And in the trials and burdens and even our own weakness and inadequacies and pains because we know that even when we can't understand, there's a sovereign God in heaven who is writing this story. And he has a plan for us. And he has a plan for what he allows in our lives. And he is good and he loves us. And when we understand that, we can say boldly and confidently, when I am weak, then I am strong. You know why this is such good news? Because it means we don't have to have it all together, man. I don't know a lot of you in this room, but I just get this sense because I know this is a big room and I know it's our culture right now. Some of us are spiritually and emotionally exhausted trying to make people around us pretend we've got it all together. That is no way to live. We understand that he is the one that's strong, not me. That gives me freedom to be able to say, I don't have all the answers. I don't know the reasons why. Sometimes the most spiritual response you can give someone is, I don't know, but I know God's good. We don't have to pretend like we're okay when we're not okay. So listen, as we close this morning, I want to remind you that God specializes in using broken people, weak people, and imperfect people to do his best work. The only prerequisite to be used by God is something that some of you have not tried yet. Some of you have tried moralism where you've tried to clean yourself up through keeping certain rules and you've created the standard and you feel like a good person because you're comparing yourself to your neighbor or your brother-in-law and you're like, well, at least I'm not as bad as that guy, right? And that doesn't work because we get compared to God's standard in the end, not our own standards. Some of you tried religion. Maybe you're here in church this morning because you think if you get just enough Jesus, maybe you manipulate Jesus to get what it is you want out of Jesus and Jesus won't play that game because he's God, not you. The one thing you have not tried is surrender. Where we raise the white flag and we say, I'm not God, you are. You're writing my story and I surrender it all to you. And when we surrender to him, then we have the freedom to trust him and to obey him and to depend on him no matter what he allows in our lives or no matter where he takes us in life. And there's great freedom in surrendering and releasing it all to him, knowing that he's God and in my weakness, he's strong. I pray for you this morning.