Introduction

Welcome to 2017. For some reason that just sounds impossible to say. It’s already 2017. I also can’t believe how many people who have said how glad they are to get 2016 behind them. I know the last elections were a little strange – OK, a lot strange – but I’m not sure why else they are so excited to move on to another year.

2017, like each new year brings new opportunities and new hopes. What are your hopes for this coming year? I think we all hope that the next year will be better than the last, no matter how good the previous year may have been. We make resolutions about how we want to improve ourselves. We want to add a good habit or get rid of a bad one. These resolutions are intended to make ourselves into better people. But I think most of all we want a blessed year. We desire to have a year that is blessed by God. Who doesn’t want to be blessed by God?

We talk about the blessings of God. We say “God bless you” when someone sneezes. But do we really know what God’s blessings are and what we should do to be blessed by God?

The word blessing, when referring to God, means to cause to prosper or to make happy. I think of the Hebrew word “shalom.” While it is often translated as “peace,” it means much more than that. When someone greets wishes you shalom they’re wishing you peace, joy, and favor from God that brings a life of contentment. That’s what I think about when I think of desiring God’s blessing. It’s not wanting a lot of money or a lot of stuff, it’s desiring peace and contentment in life that only God can give. But how do we achieve that?

Turn with me to 2 Corinthians 12. On Wednesday nights I have started preaching through the gospel of Matthew. If you haven’t been there for this series we are just getting started so you haven’t missed too much. This past Wednesday we looked at the Magi who visited Jesus. When we get to chapter 5 and the Beatitudes we won’t be able to spend much time on them so beginning next week on Sunday mornings for the next two months we are going to look at them in more detail.

Each beatitude begins with the words “blessed are. . . .” In the beatitudes Jesus describes a life that is blessed and Jesus tells us the kind of lives that are blessed. But the lives Jesus describes are not like what we would expect. In fact, they are the opposite of what we would expect and certainly opposite of what the world teaches. What the Beatitudes describe is a life that has come to fully rely on Jesus.

In this passage we are going to read from 2 Corinthians, Paul has reached a moment of desperation. He has a problem he’s not been able to find a solution to. In that desperation, when he finds himself no longer able to do help himself, he finds more of God than he has found before. He finds God’s grace and blessing. We are going to start with verse 1, but my focus will be on verse 7 and following.

1I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. 2I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know – God knows. 3And I know that this man – whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows – 4was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. 5I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. 6Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, 7or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But 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. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:1-10)

That last verse is difficult to really understand. Paul says he delights in and takes pleasure in his weaknesses. It doesn’t bother him when people insult him. He doesn’t care when there are hardships. Persecutions don’t bother him. He just ignores difficulties. How does he do that and why? The why is easy, he does it because he knows that when he is weak God makes him strong and Paul would rather have God’s strength than his own. How did he learn to do this? That’s found in verses 8 and 9.

Paul says that he cried out to God three times for relief from what he calls a thorn in the flesh. We have no idea what this thorn in the flesh was. Some believe that it may have been problems with his eyesight or headaches or recurring issues with malaria and there are a host of other possible explanations. The truth is there is no way to know for sure. What we do know is the issue was so much of a problem that it caused Paul to call out to God for relief not once, but three times that God might take it away from him. And what was God’s answer? God said no. God told Paul:

You don’t need a miracle in your life all you need is my grace. My grace is more than enough because the weaker you are the more strength I am able to give you.

Once Paul experienced God’s grace he stopped fighting the thorn in the flesh and he stopped asking for relief from it. He stopped focusing on the problem he had and started appreciating it as a gift God had given to teach him to lean on him. The problem became a means of blessing.

Finish this sentence: Jesus became real to me when. . . .

What would you say? What event in your life suddenly made Jesus real to you?

One preacher asked that question of his congregation on Facebook and it wasn’t long before the answers started coming in. Some of them were general:

When I could no longer pretend that I was in control

When I had to admit that I couldn’t fix things

When I knew I wasn’t strong enough

Most of the responses were more specific:

When I was told I had three months to live because of stage IV cancer

When it became clear that I had lost control of my addiction

When the divorce papers arrived in the mail, and I could no longer pretend I could fix things

When my depression became too much for me to bear

When my husband was killed in a car accident

When the ultrasound said the baby’s heart had stopped beating

Each of these statements conveyed this same sentiment, Jesus became real when they realized they couldn’t do it on their own, when they had exhausted all of their resources, when they came to the end of all they had to offer, and they finally had nothing else to rely on but Jesus that’s when he became real to them.

This preacher says there was one response that seemed to wrap up all the answers in a single phrase:

Jesus became real when I came to the end of me

That’s what Paul learned. His thorn in the flesh that he could not get rid of on his own taught him to depend on God and as a result he began to realize God’s power at work in him. Because of this thorn he came to know God even better. This thorn brought him to end of himself and closer to God.

Have you ever come to that point? Have you ever come to the point when you realized there was nothing more you could do and all you could do was rely on God? If so, what did that do for your relationship with God?

Kyle preaches at large church, so large that it’s impossible for him to know everyone who attends. When Kyle returned to the office one day he had a message waiting for him. Brian, a member of the congregation had called and wanted Kyle to call him back. Kyle didn’t know Brian, but the note said that Brian’s eighteen-month-old son had died a few weeks earlier. Kyle said a prayer as he dialed Brian’s number. After expressing his heartbreak for Brian’s loss, Brian spoke four words that Kyle was not prepared for: “I backed over him.”

After Kyle asked him if he wanted share more details Brian continued. Brian explained that they didn’t know their son had walked outside. In fact, they didn’t even know he was capable of opening the door to go outside. When Brian finished telling what they had been going through, Kyle asked that familiar question: “How are you?” Kyle says he felt a little funny even asking the question, but since Brian had called him he must have wanted to say something. And he did. Brian began to explain how he had discovered Jesus in a way he never had before. Brian’s faith had gone from attending church once in a while – as a tradition – to running into God’s arms in complete desperation. And then Brian said:

I feel like I reached this point in my life when I had absolutely nothing left, and it turns out that for the first time in my life, Jesus has become real. Do you know what I mean? Is that unusual?

The answer to Brian’s question is no. It’s not unusual. When Brian reached the end of himself he was finally able to discover Jesus. That’s the way it works. It’s just sad that it often takes something so devastating to bring us to the end of ourselves. It takes something completely out of our control to finally help us realize just how much we need God. It’s in those times of desperation, when we’ve done all that we can do and are unable to do anything, that we finally come to God in a way that we should have been coming to him all along and come to know him like we’ve always wanted.

The problem we have is that we have so many resources that we can take care of most of our problems. We are taught to rely on ourselves. The result is it takes a great deal to come to that point that we cry out to God so it often takes a traumatic event to bring us to the end of ourselves. But even if we’ve had such an event in our lives we need to realize that reaching the end of ourselves so that we will finally rely on Jesus cannot be just a onetime event, it must be a daily journey. Every day we must realize our dependence of Jesus because that’s where he shows up in our lives and that’s where our real lives in him begin.

Getting to the end of ourselves is not easy. Our natural selves don’t want to go there. But that’s where Jesus leads us. That’s where Jesus is leading us in the Sermon on the Mount and especially in the Beatitudes.

You may have seen the movie titled The 33 that came out a little over a year ago. The movie tells the story of the thirty-three miners who were trapped in a mine in Chili six years ago. You may remember the incident that captured front page headlines for more than two months. For more than two months these men were trapped when a tremor caused a rock the size of the Empire State building to block their exit.

The movie and the book upon which it was based focus on the men’s experience while trapped in the mine. The men knew their chances weren’t very good. One paper gave the chances of them being rescued at just 2%. As the days went by they eventually turned to one of the older miners who they knew was a Christian and asked him to pray for them. The older miner said that when he prayed he did so on his knees as a sign of his humility. He said that if the men didn’t want to get down on their knees they would need to find someone else to pray for them. So they got down on their knees and he prayed. Here’s part of his prayer.

Dear God, we are not the best men, but Lord have pity on us. We are sinners and we need you. There is nothing we can humanly do without your help. We need you to take charge of this situation.

That’s the definition of coming to the end of yourself. It’s realizing that there is nothing more you can do and that you need God’s help.

When he finished praying the men then asked this Christian miner what they needed to do next and he said that they needed to confess their sins – out loud. So that’s what they did. They began to confess their sins to one another. One man confessed his addiction to alcohol and the effects it had on his family. Another man confessed that he had trouble controlling his temper. Another man confessed that he had not been a good father to his young daughter. On and on it went with each man confessing his sin and shortcomings. Then, down in this deep dark cave, as they continued to confess their sins, the strangest thing happened – revival broke out. Who would have guessed that? They began to gather each day for prayer and the Christian miner would share what he could remember of God’s word.

Trapped down in the mine these men did what they had needed to do for years but just couldn’t find time to do, they got right with God.

And isn’t that the way it is with us as well? We know there are things we need to do but we just never get around to doing them because we are too busy and too distracted. But when we are desperate, when we realize there is nothing more that we can do, we finally reach out to God in ways we never have before. We finally we realize the true value of those things we once thought were so important. We finally come to the end of ourselves and that brings us closer to God.

Those events that bring us to this point are gifts from God. None of us want those gifts, but all of us need them. We all need to be reminded of our need for God because as Paul said it’s in our weakness that God's power shines through. It’s in those times of weakness that we are able to discover God’s presence like we’ve never know and his peace that passes understanding.

Eventually, the rescuers are able to reach the miners through a small hole. It’s not nearly big enough to bring the men up, but it’s big enough to send the men food, water, and a telephone. They miners are able to communicate with their families and they begin to news from the outside. There is hope that they will eventually be rescued. As they read the newspapers sent down to them they begin to realize they’ve become famous. When – not if but when – they get out they will be famous and there will be money to be made from this experience. But as the hope rises and their desperation subsides guess what else subsides. They stop praying, they stop confessing, they stop worshiping God and the sparks of revival die out. It’s great news that they’re going to be rescued, but it also becomes easier for them not to cry out to God. It becomes easier for them to forget they are dependent on God.

And that’s the way is usually goes. The easier life is the less we think we need God. The more we have the less depend on him. And so it is only when we come to the end of ourselves, the end of our resources, the end of our strength, and the end of our answers that we finally come to God.

This morning I want you to know that there is a gift – a blessing – God wants to give you that he can only give you when you reach the end of yourself. He can only bless you when you realize how desperately you need him. I would never wish for you to experience a tragedy in your life. I would never wish for you to suffer a loss, a death, or heartache, but the truth is we all face those times. The question is what will we do when those times come? When we reach the end of ourselves and feel we have nowhere to turn will we finally reach out to God? I am here to tell you that it is in those times that God is able to help us the most. If you will look for it there is a gift for you there and God will give you himself like you have never experienced him before.

As we start this new year looking for blessings from God I can tell you will not find them where you thought you would. In the Beatitudes, which means to be blessed, Jesus tells us they are found in the opposite places that we thought. Jesus tells us that we find his blessings when we come to the end of ourselves.