Sermon Tone Analysis

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?