Everybody Loves an Underdog, But Nobody Wants to be One, Pt. 2

Have you ever experienced a season of life when everything felt like it was working against you, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t fix it? Pastor Nick Gatzke returns to 2 Corinthians, where the Apostle Paul begs God to end his suffering. Find out what God did and how Paul reacted.

The thorn in the flesh. It sounds to me like this is the opposite of Paul functioning at his maximum capacity. It’s the opposite of him feeling activated. It’s the opposite of him feeling like he’s right down the middle of his gifts and skills. It sounds like there’s tormenting of some form that’s happening here. What is the thorn? Well, the short answer is we don’t know. If you ask a group of college students, and I remember having this conversation multiple times, you ask some college Christians what they think the thorn is. It’s almost comical, but it’s illustrative of how we normally look at this. All the 18- to 22-year-old men say almost always the same thing. Oh, that’s easy, pastor. The thorn is clearly lust.

Why, because 18 to 22 year old men struggle a lot with lust. And if you were to ask the college women, what is the thorn, they would say, oh, that’s easy, pastor, it’s issues of security. I mean, clearly he’s being persecuted, he’s being threatened on all sides. Well, why? Because a lot of 18 to 22 year old women deal with issues of security. I know those are generalizations, but the point is is that when we look at the thorn, we tend to insert our own personal struggles with what that could be. And actually, maybe that’s intentional. He doesn’t tell us what the thorn is because he doesn’t want to get bogged down. That’s not the most important. I mean, most scholars think that it’s probably some form of ongoing illness that he has. But what’s more important than what this thorn in the flesh actually is, is who it comes from. The original language here makes clear that this is not haphazard.

If it’s not a result of his sin or it’s not a result of judgment on him, it was intentional, this thorn in the flesh. And God is the unseen initiator behind this suffering. He doesn’t tell us what it is because it doesn’t really matter what it is. The unique thing about this suffering is that it was God ordained, but it was executed by Satan himself. Another way to put it is that Satan sent the thorn in the flesh, but it was given to him by God for a purpose. Now stop and think about that for a moment.

We often attribute God’s blessing when things are going well, don’t we? We often say on the external, if the decision is made and it goes in the way that I thought, oh, God is so good, and he is. But we imply in that statement that if the decision didn’t go the way that I wanted it to go, that God isn’t good. We say, oh, I’m healthy. God must be blessing. But here we see that God actually might be blessing through pain, through a thorn.

He allows this difficulty in his life, it’s not because of judgment, it’s for his ultimate good. And in verse seven, we see that it will keep him from becoming conceited. Now, as it relates to seeing God’s power at work in our life, there are so many times in life when we think about the ways that we can engage in God’s work, but there’s a variety of difficulties that come before us. I mean, sometimes we feel like, well, I’m not trained well enough. Sometimes there’s internal tensions within side of me, there’s different life factors, there’s personal shortcomings, my schedule’s too busy, I have illness, I have a learning disability, I have physical disabilities. We’ve seen it a hundred times. And people, when they’re wrestling with whether or not they should engage in God’s work, and they’re faced with these sorts of either internal or external difficulties, I can hear the patterns of almost two common responses. On one side, you hear the response fairly regularly, well, God isn’t blessing me, and therefore I’m not gonna serve him. And when he starts blessing me again, then I will serve him. On the other side, you hear the shortcomings used as the excuse, as if I wanna serve God, but I’m not of the right pedigree. Or I’m ill-equipped, or I’m too tired, and therefore those people just do nothing, because they’re not functioning at 100%, and they don’t wanna be the underdog. I mean, nobody wants to be the underdog in their own story.

I don’t know about you, but I’m so thankful that Jonathan Edwards, Puritan pastor, after being fired from his church, surely struggling with despair, that he didn’t just sort of mail it in and say, you know what, I’m not functioning at 100%, I’m gonna not do anything. And I’m thankful for the Apostle Paul, that despite a thorn in the flesh, whatever it was, that it did not stop him from serving Jesus. Instead, what did he do? He prayed, he trusted in God’s goodness, he asked repeatedly that the Lord would remove this difficulty from him, and he continued to serve, even when he physically didn’t feel like it. He kept following Jesus.

God’s power in your life is not chiefly shown in the short-term external blessings that he gives. God’s power in your life is not primarily shown in those mystical spiritual experiences that you have, as wonderful as they are. Paul then gets to where God’s power is really shown, and this is where this becomes a favorite Bible verse for so many of us. God’s power in your life is displayed chiefly in your weakness. Look with me. Again, at verse eight, he says, three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. Verse nine, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.”

“Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness,” Paul says, “so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ then, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” The problem was that the Corinthians were saying, clearly you’re not from God. Clearly you don’t know God’s power. Clearly you don’t have his blessing upon your life because you’re sick. And he is saying, no, no, no, actually because I am sick and God is still doing all of these things through me.

This shows his power even all the more. And God says to him, “My grace is sufficient for you.” Now when we think about grace, we think about this term that is defined as unmerited favor. It’s the favor of God that you can’t earn; it’s simply given to you. And we think about this in terms of the core of our salvation. There’s nothing you can do to earn your salvation to earn fellowship with God to earn the forgiveness of your sins God gives it to you by grace. Can’t earn it, unmerited favor and when he gives you his grace He accepts you into the family. You are adopted by him and he saves you. But beyond that there’s an ongoing grace in life that he gives a sustaining grace. This is similar. You don’t deserve it. He gives it freely but it happens in these weak moments.

And what he is saying to Paul is, you don’t need anything but what I’m going to give you. And when you really think about it, you don’t have anything, except for what I’ve allowed for you. His power is made perfect in weakness. That is to say, his power is most greatly displayed when you are outside of your area of personal strength, when you are outside of that lane of your unique giftedness or your skill set. His power is most greatly displayed when you are on attack on all sides, when you don’t feel well, when you have migraines, when you have insomnia, when you cannot do things of your own accord, and yet he still does things in you and through you.

That’s an incredible type of power. Jonathan Edwards once said, “Grace is God’s glory begun, and glory is God’s grace perfected.” As you know, I love Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the famous Baptist preacher. He was one of the greatest preachers in the history of England. And he was known for his power, practically and spiritually speaking. But embedded in that life of spiritual power was a life of emotional and physical suffering. And it’s a profound example of Paul’s principle here of Christ’s power being made perfect in weakness. Spurgeon suffered from occurring bouts of depression through his life.

And because of his own popularity and some of the unpopular stands that he would take against theological liberalism of the day, he always was under ridicule from others, including even from other pastors. Added to this was his need to provide relentless care for his wife, who was an invalid for most of their married life. And if that wasn’t enough, Spurgeon spent nearly a third of his last 27 years of ministry out of the pulpit because of physical illness. There was hardly a weakness, an insult, a hardship or a difficulty that Charles Spurgeon did not know personally. Nevertheless, this was his response to his suffering and weakness as a minister. He said this.

“Instruments shall be used, but their intrinsic weakness shall be clearly manifested. There shall be no division of the glory, no diminishing of the honored due the great worker. The man shall be emptied of himself and then filled with the Holy Ghost. My witness is that those who are honored of their Lord in public have usually to endure a secret chastening or to carry a peculiar cross. Lest by any means they exalt themselves and fall into the snare of the devil. Such humbling but salutary messages of our depressions whisper in our ears. They tell us in a manner not to be mistaken that we are but men, frail, feeble, and apt to faint.”

God’s power is perfectly shown when he gives grace to you in your weakest moments. And if you want to experience God’s power in your life, and I’m sure by the very nature of you being in church on Sunday morning, there’s part of you that wants to experience God’s power in your life. If you want to experience his power in your life, then you should actually begin to expect some of these types of sufferings that we’re talking about. They shouldn’t surprise you. They shouldn’t be misconstrued as often an attack as sometimes they are. He tells us in verse 10 what types of things to expect.

Weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities, but he actually boasts in such weaknesses. Jesus says as much to his disciples. John 16:33 says, “I have said these things to you that you may have peace in me. In the world, you have tribulation, but take heart because I have overcome the world.” Likewise, 1 Peter 4 indicates that those thorns in the flesh or those persecutions that come from the outside are actually a vehicle that God uses to help people live for him. He says this, “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking. For whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin so as to live for the rest of time in the flesh no longer for human passions, but for the will of God.”

God’s power is perfectly displayed as he shows grace to you in your weakness. And so the charge, Christian, is then rest in this grace. Some of you are here today and you struggle. I know you do. I wonder what your weakness is. Some of you have a thorn. And sometimes these thorns are seasonal in nature. And other times they will last the rest of your life. And you don’t know which one it’s going to be. He tells you what to expect in verse 10, a variety of difficulties listed. First Peter 4, 12 tells us that we shouldn’t be surprised when these things come upon us.

If you have a thorn right now, the word for you is rest in God’s grace. In those moments when you are the underdog, when you are unqualified, when you are totally helpless, and God still works in you, and you still are able to resist temptation to sin, and even though the world feels like it’s crashing down around you and you still praise his great name, these are the moments when power is really displayed. I mean, that is power. It’s easy to say God is good when everything around you is just peachy. But power is shown when everything is bad and God’s glory is still manifest among you.

So how do you rest in this grace? Well, one of the greatest piece of advice I’ve ever received. Somebody told me a long time ago, when you keep stumbling through your Christian life, when you fall prey to temptation again, when you don’t feel like God is near, when there’s distractions coming all over the place, what is the one thing you can do? Make an intentional or concerted effort to keep worshiping him. When the world is crashing down around you, say, I don’t care what else happens, I’m going to worship him. Because when you worship God, whether that’s in your private prayer life, whether that means coming to church, whether that means being with other Christians, whether that means through reading your Bible, when you worship God, You are placing yourself rightly beneath Him. You are saying, God, I only see so much, and I only hear so much, and I only know so much, and I don’t like what I see, hear, or know right now. But you know infinitely more. And you’ve shown your goodness to me. And you’ve shown that you are trustworthy, and that you are faithful. And no matter what happens, I’m gonna continue to worship you. And when you do that, it almost pulls you out of the temptation that we have for self-loathing. And it puts you back into the place where you can actually say, I’m gonna boast in my weakness. Because here, this is where God’s power actually is. I don’t know what you’re doing, but I know you’re doing something. and your power’s gonna be displayed perfectly in this place. God is so abundantly gracious to you. There was a beggar by the roadside, and he asked for alms from Alexander the Great as he passed by. The man was poor, and he was wretched, and he had no claim on the ruler at all, not even to lift a solicitous hand. And yet the  emperor threw him several gold coins. And as one of his servants was walking beside him, as he astonished and he said, sir, copper coins would be adequate to meet the beggar’s needs, so why did you give him gold? And Alexander responded in royal fashion. Copper coins would suit the beggar’s needs, but gold coins suit Alexander’s giving.

God himself does not just give you enough to get by. The grace that he gives again and again is more than enough. It’s sufficient at the very least. And his power is shown there. I close with this. A little boy had an accident and he was taken to the hospital. And after he was made comfortable, the nurse came into the room and she brought him a large glass of milk. And he looked lovingly and longingly at milk. But he did not pick up the glass. The boy came from a home that was impoverished and his hunger was seldom satisfied. He rarely had milk to drink. And if he ever received a glass of milk, it certainly wasn’t full. And even then, he was expected. to only drink a portion and share it with at least one other child. And after some time had passed and the milk still sat there by his bedside, he looked at the nurse and he said to her, how deep may I drink? And the nurse replied, drink it all, there’s more. So it is with God’s grace. Some of us don’t feel like we have had our needs fully met. They’re only partially met from season to place to place in our lives. And just when you drink from the cup of God’s grace and you think it’s going dry, he is enough and there’s more grace for you.

What a wonderful God we worship. What a wonderful God even to allow thorns, as crazy as that sounds. What a wonderful God to show his power in you. He could show his power in all kinds of ways, and he chooses to show it in you. Isn’t that amazing to think about? Friends, let me pray for you, because the topic of this favorite Bible verse is really a shift in perspective for the reality in which we engage day in and day out. The messages from all around us say God’s blessing comes when you feel good. But here we see actually just the opposite. Sometimes God’s greatest blessings come when you feel pretty bad. but his power is made perfect in you. Let me pray for you. Father God, we thank you for your goodness to us, your kindness and your grace, your grace which is sufficient, your grace which never runs dry, a grace that is given to suit the giving of an emperor, a king. We love you. And I pray for those who have a thorn today that they would know this grace, that they would rest in it, that rather than turning in anger to you, that they would turn in longing to you and rely on you in it. For the rest of us, Father, we know our season is coming. Whatever it might be, maybe it’s grief, maybe it’s temptation, maybe it’s persecution, maybe it’s physical illness or  pain. Prepare us, even starting right now, to know that when that moment comes, there’s nothing outside of your view.

And there’s nothing that your grace will not be sufficient for. We pray these things in the name of your son Jesus. Amen. And amen.

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** This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy, but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.