“Serving Through Your Weakness” (Part 5)

From Salvation to Service Sermon Series

“Serving Through Your Weakness” (Part 5)

KEY PASSAGE: 2 Corinthians 12:1–10 (NASB)

Gracious heavenly Father, I pray that You will accomplish Your good purpose and good work in every life so that we might be used to bring people to the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Thank You for this morning’s praise and worship, and we commit the rest of the service into Your hands. We ask and pray through Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. Amen. Please be seated.

TITHE and OFFERING

We will call on the ushers to pass around the offering plates so we can collect our tithes and offerings. The worship team will lead us in song as we collect our tithes and offerings.

PRAYER FOR TITHE and OFFERING

Gracious Lord, receive these gifts from the hands of Your people. Superintend our giving by Your Spirit, that it may serve the advancement of the gospel and the flourishing of Your kingdom. Through Christ our Lord, we pray. Amen

WELCOME

Welcome to our Sunday Worship Service. We are so glad you are here today! Let’s take a moment to stand and greet those around us with the joy of the Lord. If you are visiting us for the first time, please stand so we can recognize and welcome you. And to all who are joining us online, we greet you —may you feel the presence of Christ Jesus wherever you are.

ANNOUNCEMENT

📖Wednesday Night is our Bible Study Connect at 7:00 p.m. Please join us for a time of learning, fellowship, and spiritual growth as we study the Word of God! We are studying the Book of First Samuel, and this week we will focus our attention on Chapter 12. I encourage you to read Chapter 12 of First Samuel and come ready for Bible Study on Wednesday night.  📅Corporate Prayer Meeting—We meet every Sunday at 9:00 a.m. downstairs in the fellowship hall for a time of prayer. Please join us during our Corporate Prayer Meeting here at the church.   

 All those returning to school, please come forward so we may pray over you.

DECLARATION of FAITH in GOD

Let us stand and say the Declaration of Faith in God together. Please remain standing as we pray.

PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

Let’s pray. Let’s pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word that transforms our hearts when we are open to receive it. As Jesus declared, Your Word is the very essence of truth. We ask, by Your Spirit, to open our hearts to accept Your Word. May we respond to Your Word in obedience and faith. In the name of Christ Jesus, we pray. Amen. You may be seated.

SERMON INTRODUCTION

You can hear me preach this morning because of a process called amplification. Our sound system takes what would otherwise be a weak signal and strengthens it—making it robust, clear, and effective. Without our church sound system (a network of audio equipment), many of you—perhaps most—would struggle to hear me. The microphone I am wearing right now is connected to a system that is designed to amplify my voice. Without it, my voice might disappear into the background—making my voice weak, unclear, and unheard. Amplification takes what is soft, weak, or insufficient—and causes it to resound with strength and power.

What an amplification system [PA System] does for a weak signal, God does for weaknesses in your own life. God, in His grace, empowers our human weakness to fulfill His divine purpose in our lives. God amplifies what we surrender to Him. What is weak in our hands or our lives becomes fruitful in God’s hands. In our hands, it is weakness. In God’s hands, it is a harvest. Our limitations, when placed in God’s hands, become instruments of grace, provision, strength, and power.

SERMON EXPOSITION 1

Many times—yes, much of the time—and if we are honest, most of the time, God doesn’t call you to serve Him from the place of your strength. No, God calls you from the place of your weakness. Paul brings this out in this well-known passage in 2 Corinthians Chapter 12. Paul talks about a thorn in his flesh. God will call you to serve when your knees are trembling. God will call you to serve when your voice is shaking. He calls you when your confidence is low and your resources are few.

In verse 7, Paul says, “Because of the extraordinary greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself.” A thorn in my flesh. Many of us speak of having “a thorn in our side,” referring to difficult people or persistent frustrations in our lives. But when Paul uses the phrase in 2 Corinthians 12:7, he is describing something far more severe. The Greek word used in this verse is skolops, which refers to a splinter, a needle, a stake, something sharp that causes relentless, excruciating pain.

Paul uses a synonym for this thorn in his flesh—he calls it weakness. Not because Paul lacked faith in God, but because the thorn exposed his dependence on God. The thorn in Paul’s flesh stripped away self-reliance and made room for grace. He says, for example, in verse 9, “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses.” He says again in verse 10, “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses …” He says at the end of verse 10, “When I am weak.” This thorn—whether a splinter, a needle, or a stake—made Paul weak. We do not know what Paul’s thorn in the flesh was.

If you read and study Bible commentaries on this passage, you will know there are several speculations about what Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” actually was. Scholars have proposed many possibilities, because Paul endured afflictions of all kinds—physical, emotional, and spiritual—that could have qualified.

We know from some of his letters, for example, that Paul had an eye problem. He says in Galatians 6:11, “I write you in large letters.” Some scholars believed that the thorn in Paul’s flesh was his eye problem. Others believe Paul’s thorn wasn’t physical, but relational or spiritual – those who were constantly trying to undermine his ministry, following him from city to city, sowing division, and challenging his apostolic authority. Whatever the thorn was, it made Paul weak. And that weakness became the very place where God’s power was perfected in Paul’s life. The thorn wasn’t just a problem—it was a platform for God’s grace.

SERMON APPLICATION 1

Paul speaks broadly of “weaknesses”—and this can be physical affliction, emotional distress, spiritual struggle, and external opposition. Because the thorn remains unnamed, the good news is you can fill in the blank with your weaknesses, knowing that God’s grace meets us not only in one kind of suffering, but in every form of human weakness. Some thorns are emotional. You battle with depression … battle with discouragement … struggle with frustration.

Some thorns that weaken us are relational. Perhaps a marriage that is unfulfilling that feels more like endurance than intimacy, or the prolonged season of singleness that stretches far beyond what you had hoped for, leaving you wrestling with loneliness and longing. Sometimes, thorns are financial and economic in nature: debt you cannot get out of, and the moment you see daylight, something else breaks down, and it looks like God is against you. In moments like these, it can feel as though heaven is silent. Some thorns are physical. They come in the form of persistent pains or mysterious conditions that defy diagnosis. You feel weak—not just in your body, but in your spirit—because the suffering lingers without clarity or relief.

SERMON EXPOSITION 2

God gave Paul a thorn. God gave Paul a weakness. God gave Paul something that was aggravating him. A good God gave it to Paul … to you….to me. But it gets worse at the end of verse 7. “… there was given me a thorn in the flesh …” verse 7 says; “… a messenger of Satan to torment me…” God permitted Satan to buffet Paul. [Watch This] God was the ultimate source of the thorn in Paul’s flesh, and Satan served as the delivery system. Paul says I have a thorn, a hurt, a problem, an irritation, a splinter, a stake, and it hurts so bad, because it was set to buffet me. God gave it to me, and the Devil delivered it. The word buffet used here in this verse means “to beat, to strike with the fist.”

God allowed the Devil to exploit and operate within these circumstances. Watch this now—if God gave the thorn, and the Devil was allowed to deliver it, and it was causing me pain, then my pain from the Devil was taking place while I was in the will of God. My suffering didn’t occur outside of God’s will—it happened right in the center of it. My affliction didn’t mean I was out of alignment—my suffering means I was being refined within the will of God.

So how do I know it is a thorn? Verse 8: “Concerning this, I entreated the Lord three times that it might depart from me.” It is a thorn, because you called on God to get rid of it and He didn’t. If you have called on God to deal with something in your life that hurts: physically, financially, emotionally, circumstantially, whatever … whatever …your thorn in the flesh is, and it hurts and you have sincerely called on God … you sincerely want to please and trust God … you sincerely want to live for God, and you have shouted out to God, and God has not answered, then it is a thorn.

Watch this. It is an intentional weakness. Why does God have me in a thorny situation? Why is God allowing me to be weak? And why is God allowing the Devil to make me weak? Two reasons. The beginning of verse 7 tells us the first reason, and “Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations; for this reason …” He says reason number one, if you are facing a thorn, … anybody in a thorny situation … that you have been made weak by? Paul says the reason God gave it to me is because of the revelations. The word revelation speaks of divine disclosure—God unveiling what was previously hidden. It is the moment when heaven pulls back the curtain and allows us to see what we could never discover on our own. Revelation is divine impartation.

SERMON EXPOSITION 3

He says in Verse 2, of the same chapter, “I know man in Christ who fourteen years ago, (whether in the body I do not know; or out of the body, I do not know: God knows). Such a man was caught up to the third heaven …”, the third heaven is the same as paradise, “…… and I know how such a man, (whether in the body or apart from the body; I do not know: God knows); was caught up into paradise …”, the third heaven is the heaven of heavens where God’s throne is; “… and heard inexpressible words; which a man is not permitted to speak. On behalf of such a man I will boast; but in my own behalf I will not boast, except regarding my weaknesses.”

We know for sure that Paul is talking about the same subject, because he is still talking about weaknesses. He says, fourteen years ago, a man was caught up to the third heaven. The man Paul is talking about is himself, because he … says; it is my weaknesses.’ Paul says, ‘I know a man in Christ,’ he says, and this man, referring to himself, when he was there, could not discern his state. He could not make sense of whether he was in the body or in the Spirit, which tells you a little bit about Heaven. He goes on to say that what he saw and heard in paradise was beyond human vocabulary—no earthly language, not even the breadth of Webster’s Dictionary, could capture its glory. It was inexpressible, staggering to the imagination. Paul says he was forbidden to speak of what he saw in heaven. The revelation was so substantial, so magnificent, that God permitted a thorn in his flesh to keep him grounded—to ensure that the man who glimpsed heaven would remain humble on earth.

SERMON APPLICATION 2

If there is a weakness in your life—a thorn that you have prayed over, pleaded with God about, and yet it lingers, pressing into your soul—it may not be an oversight. It may be divine intention, and sometimes, the delay is not neglect; it is God’s design for your life. Paul went to paradise; came back to pain. Paul tasted glory, only to walk back into suffering. He received a blessing and came home to affliction. He entered a heavenly trance and awakened to earthly torment.

Why? Because the revelation given to Paul required restraint. The vision demanded a thorn. Have you experienced that? You come to church on Sunday morning, and the Spirit of God moves so powerfully that you feel lifted—carried by grace, floating out to the parking lot. But when you leave the church building and step back into your week, the thorn greets you again. The same struggle. The same pain. The same unanswered prayer.

If God has a thorn in your life, it is to increase your usefulness! Let me say that again. If God has permitted a thorn in your life, it is there on purpose; it may have arrived by way of the enemy—a messenger of Satan, hand-delivered to torment you—but it was first filtered through the sovereign fingers of God. Nothing enters your life without divine permission. Nothing. And if you don’t understand the sovereignty of God over every delivery, even the ones stamped with hell’s return address—you will misinterpret your pain and suffering. You will think it is punishment when it is preparation. God doesn’t waste suffering. And if God allows a thorn, it is because He is preparing you for a greater assignment.

SERMON EXPOSITION 4

The second reason for the thorn, Paul tells us in verse 7, is “to keep me from exalting myself.” In other words, the thorn was divinely appointed to confront pride—whether real or potential. It is God’s way of saying, “I love you too much to let you drift into self-glory.” Before pride can take root in your life, God plants a thorn. The thorn humbles us so that grace can hold us tight in the arms of God.

Paul was given a thorn to humble him. God will do whatever it takes to remove your self-sufficiency. As long as you are sufficient in yourself, you bear your thorn. Because the goal of a thorn is to make you weak, which means you don’t have enough strength on your own, which means you need God’s help. You need God’s grace.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 1:27 that: “… God hath chosen the weak things of this world …” God will create weakness, and He will, if necessary, use the Devil to do it. I know this may be messing with your theology, but God let the Devil into the Garden of Eden to tempt Adam. God let the Devil into the life of Job to wreck Job’s life. God let the Devil into the life of Peter, which caused Peter to deny Jesus three times.

You see, one of the greatest spiritual threats we face today is self-sufficiency—better known in plain language as pride. It is the mindset that says, “I got this.” Functioning independently of God is not strength—it is rebellion dressed up as confidence. Paul says, “There was given to me a thorn.” Now the bad news is—it hurts. It is painful. But the good news is that God is preparing to reveal something. A revelation is on the way. It is like a woman whose water breaks. The bad news is—she is about to enter labor. Pain is coming. Pressure is rising. But the good news is—new life is about to be delivered.  So don’t despise the thorn. Don’t curse the labor. Don’t curse the pain and suffering.

Many of us don’t serve God, or don’t serve Him well, because we are too sufficient. So, if I have this weakness, emotional, circumstantial, whatever it is, financial, and I keep praying, and nothing keeps happening, what should I do? What do you want me to do? What does God want me to do? That should be your question right now. Paul says in verse 8, “I prayed to the Lord three times …” He said to God, Take this away from me! It hurts! He doesn’t rebuke the Devil. The Devil is not Paul’s problem. God gave it to Paul.

If you are blaming the Devil for something God has allowed, you are looking in the wrong direction. We have folks running around shouting, “I rebuke the Devil in the name of Jesus!”—Yes, there is a time and place for spiritual warfare. If there was any situation where rebuking the Devil should have been appropriate, it was Paul’s thorn in the flesh. But you don’t see Paul rebuking the Devil. You don’t see Paul binding the devil. You don’t see him casting the Devil and demons. Why? Because Paul understood something we often miss: this thorn, though delivered by a messenger of Satan, was permitted by the hand of God. And when God allows it, rebuking will not remove the pain. Submission will. Surrender will. Grace will.

He says; “… I entreated …” That word entreated, in verse 8, means I begged! So, this wasn’t a light prayer. This was a serious prayer. Make it “… depart from me.” God, take away this physical pain! God, take away this depression! The next verse says, “… He said to me …My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Guess what happened? Paul heard … the voice … of God … answer … his prayer … without giving … his request. When you pray to God, there are three possible outcomes: God can only answer you in three ways. Yes—the preferred answer, that most Christians like. No—the answer I don’t want … or God can say wait.

Notice what God says to Paul: “He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weaknesses …” This is not the theology most of us want to hear. It is not a popular theology, but the goal of today’s message is not to be popular; it is to be theological. God says to him two things in response to his request. Number one: I am going to let you experience another level of grace. My grace is sufficient for you.

Grace is the abundance of divine supply. 2 Corinthians 9:8 says that God has more grace than you will ever use. There is more air than you will ever breathe.  There is enough water for every fish that swims, and for every creature that breathes; there is enough air. That is grace. Grace is God’s ability to supply more than enough.

Why do I need God’s grace? Because I am weak. I need grace because I am weak … I need grace because I am lonely … I need grace because I am discouraged … I need grace because I am in physical pain … I am this … I am that. Watch This: When God supplies grace, your affliction works for you, and not against you. Grace works for you, and not against you.

SERMON EXPOSITION 5

Verse 9 says, “Most gladly therefore in light of this truth …” “Most gladly therefore I would rather boast about my weaknesses; that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” You know why some of us are not experiencing grace, which reveals power? Because we complain, and all we see is that it hurts … it hurts … it hurts … it hurts … it hurts … it hurts! Every time your weakness hits you, every time your thorn pricks you, it is a call to look to God for power … to look to God for grace. Paul says, Embrace your weaknesses. Rest in the presence of bad situations, because when God sees your weakness and praises, God dispenses … God pushes the grace button. God dispenses grace, and you experience God’s power! How do I know it? Because at the end of verse 10 Paul says, “… when I am weak …” “… then I am strong.”

SERMON CONCLUSION – FAITH APPEAL, CALL to ACTION, and ALTAR CALL

Far too many Christians today allow discomfort to dictate their devotion to God. A headache, a hard week, a hurt feeling—as a reason to withdraw from church and not serve in ministry. But Paul didn’t let his thorn sideline him. The thorn did not become a stumbling block in Paul’s ministry; it became a stepping stone. A platform for God’s grace. It is OK to serve with your thorn because the very thing that tries to hold you back may be the same thing God uses to lift you up.

There was a man named Moses—mighty in calling, but weak in speech. When God called him to confront Pharaoh, Moses said, “I am not eloquent… I am slow of speech and tongue.” In other words, “God, I have a thorn in my mouth.” But God didn’t remove it. Moses didn’t get a new voice—he got a new dependence. And through that weakness, God delivered a nation. So, this week, don’t just endure your thorn—embrace it. Praise God and give Him some glory for your pain and suffering. Ask God, “Lord, what are You trying to reveal through this weakness?” Because when you stop running and start limping, you will find that grace walks with you. And when you are weak, —then you are strong because of God’s grace.

God bless you.

If you need prayer or feel the Lord drawing you closer today, we invite you to come to the altar—this is your moment to respond in faith. Let’s stand on our feet.

BENEDICTION [CLOSING PRAYER]

Let us pray.

Father, it is with a tremendous amount of joy and gratitude that we have looked into this passage and how useful it is for our lives. How blessed it is to know that You have a purpose in our pain and our difficulty that could never be achieved any other way, and we can agree with James, who said, “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.” We should joyfully embrace the suffering because it has such a tremendous spiritual impact on our Christian lives. It breaks our pride and drives us into Your holy presence. And we pray now that You will confirm these great truths to our hearts and may we live them out to serve You faithfully to Your honor and glory in the name of Jesus Christ, we pray, and all God’s people say – Amen.

You are dismissed. God bless you. We look forward to seeing you next week at 10:30 a.m.