I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses—though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth; but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.—2 Corinthians 12:1–10 

Introduction

Unbelievers Are Welcome

I want to start by welcoming unbelievers who are here with us. You may wonder what Christians really think of you here at Bethlehem. I don’t want you to get any weird vibes from us as a church. I will say it loud and clear: We are very glad you are here. One of the reasons the church strives to be a welcoming people is that Jesus welcomed us into God’s presence at great cost to himself on the cross. That is why we extend a gospel welcome to you. We are putting out the welcome mat. I love the phrase that Tim Keller’s church in New York City has: skeptics welcome. That is our welcome mat. Bring your questions, bring your doubts, bring all of yourself. You don’t have to leave who you are at the door to enter and spend time with us. Above all, I invite you to listen to how the gospel of Christ provides the most eternally satisfying answers to your questions and longings. The gospel addresses both our questions and our longings.

I am going to ask you to look at your longings for a moment. One of the longings we all feel is for our problems to go away. I have never met anyone who said, “I wish I had more problems and more pain. I wish more things would go wrong.” Our longings for everything to be right and pain free and carefree are longings for paradise. It is a universal longing. Have you ever wondered why this is such a built-in longing we all have? When God created the world and made the first humans, Adam and Eve, he made a garden paradise and put them there. They enjoyed God’s direct presence. But because they failed to trust God and his goodness, they rebelled against him, and as a consequence God cast them out of paradise. Humans have been trying to find a way back ever since that day, but the Bible says that the way was blocked.

Humans cannot think or act or talk their way back there. It is a dead end. Many philosophers and political visionaries have been trying to make a paradise on earth ever since then through social and economic reforms, but it has never worked, and it will never work. Others have given up on the quest to make a country or the world into a paradise, and instead, they try to make their own personal paradise with money—a big mansion, a big yacht, or fast cars. But even millionaires get disillusioned with how impossible it is to find paradise on earth. Why do you think millionaires still commit suicide? They get everything that money can buy, and they are still miserable. They realize money and possessions are a dead end as well.

Those of us who can’t afford to buy a property on a tropical beach try to find paradise for a short time by taking vacations. Sometimes vacations are relaxing, but sometimes they aren’t because you bring your problems with you, especially your internal issues. Even if it does work for a while, it doesn’t last. You can’t stay on vacation forever. Others try to make retirement into their paradise. They work and work and work, sometimes at a job that is a burden, so that they can retire and finally rest. But if you ask retired people if they have finally found paradise, they admit that they have not. You hear about the heartache of aches and pains and loneliness. As they grow older, they say things like my Grandpa said near the end of his life: “I have more friends who are dead than who are alive.”

Money and political philosophy and passing laws and retirement are all dead ends. None of them leads to paradise. Our passage today talks about a vision of paradise that God gave one of his children. We learn some really surprising and profound lessons along the way. The passage consists of two visions with a thorn stuck in the middle.

1. The Vision of Heavenly Paradise (vv. 1–6)

I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.  I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.  On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses—though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth; but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me.

First, look at the structure of these verses. The vision is in the middle (vv. 2–4), but he begins (v. 1) and ends (vv. 5–6) by telling us how to interpret the vision.

Paul begins by telling us that there is nothing to be gained by visions and revelations (v. 1). The reason visions won’t help is that people will not see Paul rightly (vv. 5–6). That’s why Paul will boast in his weaknesses instead.

Let’s hear about the vision, and then we will let Paul interpret it for us. Paul tells us that this vision happened fourteen years earlier. Paul is writing 2 Corinthians around late 55 A.D. or early 56 A.D. Fourteen years earlier would be 41 A.D. or 42 A.D. This is the time period after Saul the persecutor met the risen Jesus on the Damascus road and became a follower of Jesus. He preached Jesus in Damascus, and he was going to be killed, so he escaped through the hole in the Damascus wall. He was let down in a basket—probably the same basket that they used to bring in produce and fish from the market.

This was an embarrassing experience, but it is all the more humbling when you consider that the highest honor a Roman solider received was called “the wall crown” (corona muralis). The wall crown meant the soldier got the honor of being the first person over the wall into the city his army was attacking. Paul was the opposite. He was the first to descend the wall of the city in escape. We call the time between this retreat and his first missionary journey “the silent years.” We don’t know much about what Paul was doing in this time, but we do know that he received this vision during this time when he was either in Tarsus or Antioch.

This vision is remarkable because it is a vision in which Paul was caught up to the third heaven, which he calls “paradise.” The Jews had many different ways of numbering the heavens. One of the simplest ways had three levels. According to this belief, the first level of heaven is the sky where the birds fly. The second level is where we see the sun, the moon, and the stars. The third level is the unseen realm where God dwells. This third area is often identified as paradise, the place of God’s direct presence. This word, paradise, was used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament as a reference to the original paradise of the Garden of Eden. Because paradise is where God dwells, the longing we have for paradise is a longing for heaven and the dwelling place of God.

Let me try to clear up a couple of potentially confusing things. First, some people wonder why Paul refers to a “man in Christ” instead of just saying “I.” Paul is clearly referring to himself—he says that if he were to boast about such a vision, he would not be a fool and he would be speaking the truth (v. 6). He also says that the thorn he received came to him in response to how great these revelations were (v. 7). It doesn’t make any sense for Paul to receive this painful thorn to keep him humble because someone else had such a great vision.

Paul’s point against his opponents in Corinth would also be lost if he boasted about how great his vision was. His opponents are bragging about receiving visions and revelations. They are poking fun at Paul for never sharing any of his visions and revelations. They are implying that he doesn’t talk about his visions because he doesn’t have any to share beside the one on the road to Damascus.

Do you see the trouble here? Paul can’t boast about the opposite. He boasted in the opposite in the last passage, where they boasted about their triumphs so Paul boasted about his sufferings. What is he supposed to do here? The opposite of boasting in receiving visions would be to boast that he has not received any visions, but that would be false. Paul did receive visions. He has to show that bragging about these visions would not do any good and to explain why that is.

Notice that Paul says he came back from this vision with no words to share with anyone else. He can’t even share how it happened—only God knows. This is an important point because the Jews at this time were always trying to find techniques for mediation or instructions for how to enter a trance that could transport them to heaven and document what they saw. Later Jewish literature actually has parallels here with instructions for how to transport yourself spiritually to see a vision of heaven.

Paul says that his vision was supernatural. God did it. It was not human effort. There is no merit here. Paul did not work harder than anyone to achieve this vision. He was just caught up. He doesn’t know if it was bodily transport or just something he saw in a dream. In contrast to later Jewish literature—and even some modern day attempts for people to share what they saw in their trips to heaven, one of which, Heaven Is for Real, has been falsified—Paul is not permitted to speak of these inexpressible things. I agree with those who see two restrictions here. These things are inexpressible in the sense of being ineffable. How would you even begin to talk about another world? You could only use metaphors that try to approximate what you saw. D. A. Carson said it would be like people trying to explain electricity to a tribe in Papua New Guinea that has never seen electricity. The problem would not be with their intelligence. It would be their experience. They do not have categories in their experience that accurately compare to electricity. Paul would have to try to use earthly metaphors to approximate what he saw in this heavenly vision, but the second restriction is that Paul is forbidden to even try to describe what he saw.

Verse 1 and verses 5–6 say that sharing this vision does not do any good. Paul says that nothing is to be gained and that he refrains from saying more for a specific reason: They will think too highly of him (v. 6). It will not establish his authority as an apostle, and it will not edify the church. It would not be loving to boast about receiving a vision that won’t help anyone else. It would just create unhealthy comparisons. It would only increase his reputation and their regard for him as somebody special. Paul does not want that. He wants them to boast in what they can see in him and hear from him. They can see his weakness and God’s power at work in planting churches and the attesting miracles done by the power of the Spirit (v. 12), but they also should boast in the gospel they continually hear from him.

That is why Paul only refers to himself in the third person as a man in Christ, not a great apostle. He will not put himself in some super-spiritual class, a cut above everyone else. He is just a man in Christ. He is so embarrassed that he has been forced to talk about this experience that all he can manage is to talk about it in the third person. It is another way of showing that he is not comfortable doing this and that his hand has been forced (v. 11). It allows him to share this experience in a way that distances himself from it.

2. The Thorn (12:7)

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.

The structure of verse 7 is intensely interesting to me. Paul once again has something in the middle of the verse, but he begins and ends with how to interpret the thorn. The painful thorn is part of a bigger drama of a spiritual battle with two sides and two purposes. Paul begins and ends the verse by sharing God’s purpose for the thorn, while in the middle we see Satan’s purpose for the thorn. God’s purpose is to keep Paul from pride, while Satan’s purpose is to torment or harass him.

I want to draw your attention to a distinction as we look at this verse: something can not be good and not feel good even though God works for good.

First, notice that in many ways, this experience was not good. Satan was at work to harass or torment Paul. I agree with most commentators who say that the “thorn in the flesh” is most likely a reference to some chronic physical problem. At this point, this problem had lasted for fourteen years because it came in response to the vision of paradise.

Paul also shockingly shows us that humanity is not good. We are not good. We are poisoned by pride. We are proud to the core. Paul testified that he was not humbled by the visions. On the contrary, he needed to be humbled because of the visions (2 Corinthians 12:1–7). The shocking irony is that these were not visions of how great Paul was. Pride can take great heavenly visions and twist them so that we think we are great for having received them. Pride is such a twisted sin that it can plagiarize and take credit for anything good, even visions of heavenly glory. This is proof of the last point that the visions did not help Paul spiritually. They actually hurt him spiritually because he was going down a conceited road.

Don’t miss the second fact: that God was at work for good. The thorn “was given” (v. 7). This verse begs the question, “Who gave it?” The middle of the verse says it was a messenger from Satan. Did Satan give it? Yes and no. Satan did send it to torment Paul, but he did not send the thorn to keep Paul humble. That was God’s purpose. The phrase “was given” is what grammarians call a divine passive. The thorn was given by God. Don’t miss this profound point. The thorn directly came from Satan, but indirectly and sovereignly it came from God. God did not directly do the evil of harassing or tormenting. That was Satan’s purpose and pleasure. However, God sovereignly purposed to give Paul the thorn, and his purposes are carried out through it. Satan fulfills God’s plan unknowingly. Satan makes a move that tries to beat God and his plan, but he always ends up moving into a checkmate situation. God sovereignly superintends everything that happens so God works for good, even in an evil situation that is not good and does not feel good.

This situation did not feel good at all. Paul does not enjoy the thorn. He does not enjoy the pain. If Satan is involved, there is evil involved. Evil is at work here. We don’t delight in Satan’s evil design. It may not feel good, and Satan’s part might not be good, but the fact that it is part of God’s plan means God works it for good. The good that God works here is that the pain produces an awareness of weakness and thus humility. Awareness of weakness is a great gift in the fight against pride. Paul doesn’t just know that he is weak; he viscerally feels that he is weak and dependent. He feels it in his bones. He is powerless on his own to make Satan’s tormenting messenger go away. Only God can. So Paul humbly prays that God would take it away.

It is not wrong to ask God to remove the pains and problems you have in your life. This is a model of what to do in weakness. We are not strong enough or smart enough to make them go away. We should pray.

3. The Vision of Grace (12:8–10)

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

We are going to take two weeks on these verses because they have something incredible to say about divine sovereignty and human weakness. I am going to apply it especially to disability next week. This week, I want to start with the structure. 

These verses begin with Paul’s initial response and close with Paul’s final response. The responses are as different as night and day. Paul starts by pleading that the thorn be taken away. He ends with glad boasting in it and all his weaknesses.

Why is there such a radical shift of response? Jesus spoke to him in a vision. Although the first vision did not give Paul anything to come back and share, Jesus wanted Paul to share what he had to say with us today.

Paul’s first response to the thorn was prayer—he was not pleased, and it was not good. Then Paul had a vision, and in this vision, Jesus’ answer to Paul’s prayer was that Christ’s grace is enough, and Christ’s power is made perfect in weakness. Paul’s response to the vision of God’s grace was to boast gladly of his weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon him.

Paul thought the thorn needed to go, but Jesus said no. Paul needed the thorn as a visceral reminder of who he was—he was a weak man in need constant need of grace. Why a thorn? Why is weakness a gift? Feelings of strength do funny things to us. We are hardwired to wander from God in our strength because we don’t feel that we need Him. That is the epitome of our pride. Paul’s weakness powerfully reminded Paul of his need for the power of Jesus. The lesson that killed conceit was not how great he was, but how great his need was.

Don’t miss the take-away of these verses. God’s solution for earthly suffering is not to take away the pain and the problems and make earth a paradise. His solution is to give us more of himself so that we have enough to make it through our struggles and our trials.

Don’t miss the fact that Christ is giving us himself. Jesus tells Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, and my power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9). Verses 9 and 10 make the person with the power explicit. It is the “power of Christ” (v. 9) that rests on Paul. It is “for the sake of Christ” (v. 10) that Paul is content with weaknesses and hardships and persecutions.

The main point of these verses is that the only cure for the poison of pride is the sufficiency of grace in our weakness. Did you know that we all share in that sickness of self-sufficiency? Do you see our danger now? We may think that we need a carefree life, but it wouldn’t help our bent toward self-sufficiency—it would only galvanize it. A carefree life would only make it easier to wander from God and buy the lie that we don’t need him.

This passage powerfully shows us the contrast between the truth of all-sufficient grace and the lie of self-sufficiency. Notice that there is more to it than pain. God’s goal is not to make us humble and miserable. He wants to give us himself. Christ comes to us in the pain, in the heartache, in the turmoil, in the trial, in the mess, and says, “I am here with you, and I am enough. My power and my strength are here to comfort you and to carry you.”

Will you believe what God is saying to you in this text? Will you believe he is working even when you don’t see him at work? We often think of seeing God at work only when we see him remove something hard in our lives. What if instead of only thinking about what God is going to do outside of you, you asked what God is doing inside of you? He is keeping you, drawing you near. You often can’t see that. You don’t often see keeping, but it is a sustaining grace at work. Can you celebrate God’s sustaining grace that is keeping you near him?

In suffering, don’t think about what God is keeping from you(i. e. health); think about what God is keeping you from(i.e., wandering from him).

Jesus tells Paul, “You need to be in touch with your weakness so that you will stay focused on my strength.” Paul says, “Okay, I will stop asking you to take it away, and I will start saying thanks for it. I will boast about how weak I am and how strong you are— strong enough for me when my flesh and my heart fail. You are the strength.”

Conclusion

Savor Saving Grace and Savor Sustaining Grace

I urge you to celebrate Christ in two ways: savor Christ’s saving grace that has purchased paradise for us, and savor Christ’s sustaining grace that has purchased the perseverance necessary to make it to paradise.

First, savor our Savior’s saving grace that purchases paradise. The parallels and differences between Paul and Jesus here are gripping. Paul prayed three times for this thorn of suffering to be removed. Jesus went to another Garden—not the Garden of Eden but the Garden of Gethsemane—and was praying in such anguish that he was sweating drops of blood. Jesus prayed there three times for the cup of suffering to be taken away from him (Mark 14:32–42). Jesus bowed to the Father’s will, but his suffering so much worse. Jesus’ suffering was greater. Why? God did not forsake Paul when he suffered. God came to him and comforted him with his presence. That is not what happened to Jesus. Jesus’ greatest suffering happened when he suffered the rejection of God and was forsaken by God. God did not  comfort him in his anguish on the cross. Jesus cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).

Here is another difference: What Jesus’ suffering accomplishes is gloriously greater. The vision of paradise Paul received is true. It is real. But how can sinners ever get there? We don’t know the way. But Jesus has told us that he is the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him.

While he was suffering in anguish on the cross, two guilty criminals were suffering with him. They both were mocking him (Mark 15:32), but then suddenly one of them stopped. His eyes were opened to who Jesus really was. He realized that Jesus had not done anything wrong. Jesus was not suffering because he was guilty like they were. So he looked to Jesus and said perhaps the weakest prayer possible. He didn’t make any grand promises of how he was going to change if Jesus gave him a second chance. He didn’t have any time left. He put all of his hope in Jesus: “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). He didn’t do anything to earn his way to paradise. He just looked to Jesus. He believed that Jesus was the king of the universe and that he was going to live on the other side of the grave.

What was Jesus’ answer? Did he despise such a weak, guilty sinner? Jesus would indeed remember this lowly sinner in his kingdom, not someday but that very day. Jesus called the kingdom the same word as in our text: He said, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). The cross opens the gates of paradise for us. Run to him. Receive him. The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day. / There may I though vile as he wash all my sins away.

Jesus is better than money. Money cannot purchase paradise. You can’t buy your way out the grave—all money can do is buy a better casket. Jesus purchased paradise and conquered the grave. He is better than morality. You can’t earn your way to paradise. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life.

Second, savor our Savior's sustaining grace that purchased the perseverance we need to make it to paradise. Remember the promise of the risen Christ to his suffering church:

To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”—Revelation 2:7

Only those who endure to the end make it to paradise.

It is good to pray for the pain to go away. God commands prayer for healing. We are not called to enjoy evil. But what do you do when God does not take it away or change it? Yes, you can know that the enemy of our souls is certainly at work for evil, but you can also know that God is at work. He will checkmate all Satan’s moves for good. Even in the valley, God is faithful and sovereign over us. He is working in our waiting, and in our weakness he is teaching us to trust.

Look at the cross again and see the way that God can turn evil for good. There was never a greater evil than the crucifixion of the innocent and infinite Son of God. Satan was active there. He entered Judas in order to carry out the betrayal of Jesus that would set in motion the death of Jesus on the cross. Satan meant it for evil, and the people meant it for evil, but they were actually unknowingly fulfilling God’s plan. All that they did was “whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28). It was not good. It was evil. It certainly did not feel good to Jesus. But look how he worked for ultimate good. Look at the ultimate, eternal good that God accomplished at the cross. It is the ultimate checkmate upon Satan. Eternal salvation for sinners. Eternal multitudes upon multitudes of forgiven sinners singing in paradise around the throne, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!” 

This praise doesn’t have to wait until paradise. It happens right here in our suffering. Joni Erickson Tada once spoke about experiencing the “splash-over of eternity” in this life. The splash over of eternity can be the splash-over of hell or the splash-over of heaven.

Think about an experience right now that feels like a splash-over of hell. Joni mentioned going through chemotherapy as the splash-over of hell for her. Some of you are going through that even now. Some of you think that it couldn’t get any worse, but the reminder of hell is that it will get much worse. You only experienced a small splash from a lake of fire.

Joni said that her suffering clarified what the splash-over of heaven really is. It is not the warm spring days or the feeling you get when all the world is right, though these are great pointers to the place where all the beauty comes from. Joni said that the greatest taste of heaven is when Jesus comes to you in your suffering. The splash-over of heaven sometimes comes in the very midst of the splash-over of hell. There is nothing so tender, kind, compassionate, and strong as when faith comes alive and Jesus feels more real than ever and nearer than ever. The hope of glory becomes singularly sweet.

How do you boast like a weakling? If you were strong, you could boast in your strength. Since we are weak, we boast in the strength of another. We boast that his strength is enough.

 

Sermon Discussion Questions

Outline: Two Visions and a Thorn
1. The Vision of Heavenly Paradise (vv. 1–6)
2. The Thorn (12:7)
3. The Vision of Grace (vv. 8–10)

Main Point: The sufficiency of grace is the only cure for the poison of self–sufficiency.

Discussion Questions
1.Why did Paul say that bragging about visions would not help? Why would it not be good to share them?

2. What was the content of Paul’s first vision?
3. What roles do Satan and God play with respect to Paul’s thorn in the flesh?
4. What was the content of Paul’s second vision? How was it different than the first one? How did it enable Paul to change the way he thought about his thorn?

Application Questions
1. Talk about a situation in your life that is deeply painful, either in the present or in the past. What did you discover about yourself? 

2. Jesus did not take away Paul’s weakness; he drew nearer to Paul in strength. Can you testify to this reality in your experience?
3. How should we think about our longing for paradise? How can sinners possibly find paradise if God’s direct presence is there?

Prayer Focus
Pray that the grace of Christ would be enough for whatever you are facing or will soon face.