Not delivered from it, but delivered through it

Let us read the main passage for today, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10.

This is Paul and Jesus having a conversation.

Let's begin with verse seven.

"Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited," otherwise proud, "I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me." Wow.

Just that one verse.

Paul says, in order to keep him away from becoming proud, he was given a thorn in the flesh.

And Paul identifies that thorn in the flesh as a messenger of Satan.

Biblical scholars go a little bit deeper, and they call it sickness, they call it many things.

I'm not sure what exactly this thorn is, but it says it's something from Satan, okay? "To torment me.

To torment me." And then Paul goes on to say, "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults," oh, "in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties." What is Paul saying? What does he delight in? In none of the things that we want to delight in, right? How many of us would say, "Oh, I'm happy to fall ill"? Or, "When people insult me, I like it." Nobody would say that.

You ask my wife, she'll be a, a good example.

Every time she says something, I, I get my ego coming up and I will say, "Why do you say that?" It's my ego.

We don't like to be insulted, whether at home or outside home.

We call it, in today's generation, generation gap.

"You don't know because you're not of my generation," right? Children tell their parents.

Hardships.

Do you like to delight in hardship? Lord, help me.

That's what we wanna do.

We don't wanna, you know, be in hardship, persecution, in difficulties.

And then Paul goes on to say, "For when I am weak, then I am strong." Amen.