Grace in Suffering - 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

When the grace of God goes to work in a Christian's life and pain is converted into power and trial is converted into triumph and suffering is converted into glory, God is glorified.

The Apostle Paul had a secret, a secret he had carried in his heart for fourteen years. And the only reason he revealed the secret was to defend his ministry and to glorify God. The secret was that God had taken Paul to heaven. The record of this is in 2 Corinthians 12. And then after Paul had come back from heaven, God gave to Paul a special burden to carry. He permitted Satan to buffet Paul and give him a thorn in the flesh. 2 Corinthians 12:7.

Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. Twice Paul repeats that, doesn't he? For this thing I besought the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong.

Paul was a man who suffered. Everybody suffers in one way or another. God's people suffer. In the world you shall have tribulation, said the Lord Jesus. John 16:33. The sufferings of this present time, wrote the Apostle Paul. Romans 8:18. Everybody suffers. Some with bodily pain, physical pain. You're listening to me right now and your body hurts and perhaps the doctor can't do much about it. There are those who suffer with emotional pain, with mental agony. Loved ones have broken their hearts. Perhaps you're going through some dark valley of bereavement or disappointment. It seems that all of God's people suffer. There's pressure of one kind or another. And this raises the question: how shall we deal with suffering in our lives?

I think Paul can teach us something here, can't he? He'd been up to heaven and experienced glory, but now he's on earth going through suffering, and through that suffering he experiences the grace of God. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 that there are three possible responses to suffering. Here they are: we can seek to escape suffering. In verse 8, for this thing I besought the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And so there's the first response, we can seek to escape suffering. Secondly, we can seek to endure suffering. Just put up with it and say, well, I'll grit my teeth and clench my fist and keep a stiff upper lip and keep my chin up—that's kind of a weird posture to be in, but we try it.

We can seek to endure suffering. We can seek to escape suffering and look upon suffering as an enemy. Or we can seek to endure suffering, and then suffering becomes a master. A master telling us what to do, controlling our lives, sapping away our strength, upsetting our mind. Or we can take a third response to suffering. We can seek to enlist our suffering. And then suffering is not an enemy or a master, it becomes a servant. It works for us instead of working against us.

Now we're going to look at these three responses. Today I want to talk with you about trying to escape suffering or endure suffering, and then we're going to look at how God enabled Paul to enlist his suffering, make his suffering work for him and not against him. First of all, in verse 8, we discover Paul tried to escape his suffering. Don't criticize him. This is a normal response. I confess to you that when I am suffering, I pray about it the way Paul did, the way Jesus did. Three times my Lord in the garden prayed, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

God made our bodies to warn us when something is wrong and we should do something about it. When there's pain in the body, the body is flashing a red signal and saying you better do something about this. There's nothing wrong with seeking means to alleviate suffering. You know, if your car has something wrong with it, you take it to the garage and the mechanic fixes it. If your body has something wrong with it, you don't just pray about it—you should pray, no question about that, but you ought to do something about it. I used to wonder why did Paul have Luke running around with him? Well, Luke was a doctor. And Luke ministered to Paul's needs. Don't be one of these super-spiritual, ultra-pious people who says, well, I'm never going to do anything about my suffering. God wants us to use the means that are available to take care of the physical needs in our lives.

The Jewish people grew up thinking that if you were sick, it was because you were out of the will of God. And then Job came along, and Job broke that bubble right away, didn't he? Here was a godly man who was still suffering. Now the Jewish people had the attitude that if you were suffering, God was punishing you. If you were suffering, it was a mark that there was sin in your life and therefore there's something wrong. If you just confess your sin the suffering will go away. Well, it doesn't work that way. But there's nothing wrong with seeking to escape suffering. Sometimes God does use suffering to chasten us, and sometimes when we do confess our sins He removes the suffering, but not always.

Here was a case where Paul prayed three times, Lord take it away. I don't have to have exactly what Paul had, but Paul prayed, Lord take it away, I have letters to write, I have churches to found, I have people to counsel, I have trips to make, please take away this suffering. And God didn't do it. Now you know if you cannot escape suffering, you've got to do something else. We can seek to endure suffering. Now Paul was a Roman, and you know the Romans were great, courageous people. The Stoic attitude of just endure it. Some of you have read the writings of Marcus Aurelius, the great Stoic philosopher, who tells you how to endure anything. You know, if you've got a broken arm, well you just endure it, don't go to the doctor. And Paul was the Roman who could have said, well I'll just endure this, I'm a strong man, I've been through a lot, I've been through shipwreck, I've been through whipping, I've been through scourgings, I can endure this.

But you know, not everybody has that kind of power. Not everybody has that kind of inner resource of personality to endure suffering. And furthermore, God doesn't want us to live like that. I'll tell you why. When all you do is endure your suffering, you are using your energy on the inside to keep yourself together, and you have no energy left for the outside to serve other people. If you're using your mental and emotional and nervous energy just to endure your pain, you know what happens? You get irritable, and you get short-tempered, and it's hard to live with. And the energy you should be using for your husband, your wife, your children, ministering for the Lord's people, you're using all that energy on the inside and you haven't got any power left for the outside, and you're tired all the time and irritable.

And more than that, life gets very self-centered. I have been through it. I know what it's like to hurt. I know what it's like to lie in an intensive care ward with needles and tubes every place they could find an opening. I know what that's like. I know how self-centered you can get. It used to bother me that when I was sick and going through pain, that it was hard to pray. Now I've met some saints who just think that a sickbed is the most glorious place in the world. Well it can be, it can be. I was reading A.W. Tozer one day and Tozer admitted that when he wasn't feeling good he had a hard time praying. And I said, Hallelujah, you're a brother to me, because I appreciate that.

God knows that we're human. And God says now look, if you can't escape suffering, and I don't want you just to endure suffering, there is something better than this. What is it? Learning how to enlist suffering. You see, God did not cure Paul. I don't want to get into any arguments with anybody, but God doesn't always heal, and God is not always obligated to heal. We discovered in our previous study that God took Paul to heaven to show him glory that he might be able to endure his suffering. And God gave him this physical suffering on earth to keep him from being proud of the fact that he'd gone to heaven. Lest I should be exalted above measure, lest I should be exalted above measure.

Paul knew why he suffered. Now sometimes we don't know why. Job didn't know why he suffered. The whole thing was a mystery. He hadn't read the book of Job! He hadn't listened in to the conversation between Satan and Jehovah. Job did not know why he was suffering, but he believed that he had integrity, that he was right before God, and he believed that when it was all over God would be glorified. When He has brought me forth, He's going to bring me forth like pure gold, said Job.

And so Paul says to us: you can seek to escape suffering, and God may answer your prayer and He may deliver you. If so, give Him thanks and glorify Him. You can seek to endure suffering, but if you do that suffering becomes your master, and really suffering ought to become your servant. And so we are going to discover how it is possible for us as Christians to hurt and still be happy. To suffer and still experience glory. How it's possible for God in our lives to transform trials into triumphs. The great theologian P.T. Forsyth has written, 'It is a greater thing to pray for pain's conversion than its removal.' Now I'm not saying God is not glorified by healing. I have experienced it. I have been snatched from the jaws of death. I know. But I tell you this, when the grace of God goes to work in a Christian's life and pain is converted into power and trial is converted into triumph and suffering is converted into glory, God is glorified.

Suffering is not working against us, it is working for us. We can transform our trials into triumphs. God does not always remove the thorn, but God can always transform the experience into one of glory and blessing. The answer to our prayer might be not the removal of the thorn, but instead a growing understanding of what this thorn really means.

Now what steps can you and I take to transform our suffering into a servant instead of an enemy or master? What steps can you and I take so that we are enlisting our suffering and it is working for us and not against us? Step number one: accept it as God’s gift. Don’t fight it. Don’t rebel against it. Don’t get bitter against God. He says there was given to me a thorn in the flesh. Strange gift, but this gift was given from God’s heart because God loved Paul. He had to keep Paul humble.

I have said this before, permit me to repeat it. Just put your hands out in front of you, your open hands. Suppose all that God did was fill these hands with blessing. He just kept pouring out abundant blessing, filling up your hands. Pretty soon you’d get unsteady. You’d start to totter and then you’d fall flat on your face. And so when God fills my hands with blessing, He always puts some burdens on my back to balance me, to keep me from falling over. You see, the purpose of blessing and the purpose of burden is to build character. God wants to build Christian character. He wants to make us more like the Lord Jesus Christ, and He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. I have yet to meet a mature Christian—I mean a really mature Christian who has the beauty of God about his life—who has not suffered.

Step number one: accept your suffering as God’s gift. Don’t fight against it. Learn to cooperate with whatever God gives to you. You say that’s hard to do. Well, yes it is, I admit that. It’s much easier for me to pray 'O God, take it away' than 'O Lord, transform it.' But you see, if I fight the will of God, I’m fighting the blessing. If I fight the will of God, I’m fighting the purpose of God. Don’t argue with God’s will. Amy Carmichael used to say our prayer is not 'thy will be changed' but 'thy will be done.' That's helped me.

Step one: accept your suffering as God’s gift. Step two: listen for God’s message. You see, Paul said, 'All right Lord, I’m going to accept this. I’m not going to fight. I’m not going to get bitter. I’m not going to argue with you. I’m not going to try to second guess you.' And then at that point, He said unto me, 'My grace is sufficient for thee.' There is a message in every experience of life. Charles Spurgeon, who was a great preacher and also a man who suffered considerably physically and emotionally—people persecuted him, lied about him, his wife was a semi-invalid—Charles Spurgeon used to say that the promises of God never shine so brightly as in the furnace of affliction. That's true. Oh, how many times we have opened the Word of God and God has spoken to us.

Now when Paul had this experience of going up to heaven recorded in the first part of 2 Corinthians 12, he heard God speak, but he couldn't share it with anybody. God said things that no man could utter. But when Paul had this experience of God's grace, he could share it with us. Now you may disagree with me, perfectly all right. I would much rather suffer on earth and have something to share with somebody else than go to heaven and hear something I had to keep quiet.

You know, we need each other. We need to encourage each other. Preacher friend, you're going through suffering out there. The furnace is hot and the battle is hot and heavy. Listen for God's message to you because that's the thing God wants you to hear. So just rest in His word. Don't go by your feelings, don't go by explanations, don't listen to the empty words of people who don't know what you're going through. Just wait for God to speak. Oh, what a blessing it is to listen to the voice of God in the hour of suffering.

Now step three: draw upon God’s grace. Draw upon the grace of God. 1 Peter 4:10 calls it the manifold grace of God. That means many-colored. The variegated grace of God. When I was a little child my mother would send me off to the store to buy thread for her. She used to do crocheting and various kinds of needlework, and she'd say now get me some variegated thread. That means many-colored. You know, life is many-colored. You have your dark days, you have your blue Mondays—they may last all week—and God says I have grace for every situation. John 1:16, 'And of his fullness have all we received and grace upon grace.' James 4:6 tells me 'He giveth more grace.' 1 Peter 5:10 tells me He is 'the God of all grace' who has called us to His eternal glory.

Now grace is not something you earn. Grace is not something you bargain for. Grace is not something you merit. Grace is free and grace is sufficient. And God said, 'Paul, I’m not going to change your situation, I’m going to change you.' I’m not going to take away the thorn, I’m going to add something to you. You see, pain can be conquered either by taking away the pain or by adding a new ingredient, and that new ingredient is the grace of God. My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Where did Paul get his strength? Out of weakness.

Now listen closely. Strength that knows itself to be strength is weakness. But weakness that knows itself to be weakness is strength. And Paul got the strength that carried him through because he knew he was weak. That's why he gloried and boasted in his weaknesses, his infirmities, because when he was weak, then he was strong. Draw upon the grace of God. He's the God of all grace. He'll give you more grace.

Now don't ask me how it works. I can't explain it to you. All I know is that when you cry out, your Father says here's the grace that you need. 'Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.' That word rest means put his tent over me. You know what that means? He says Paul, I’m going to turn this whole thing into a holy of holies. I’m going to put my tent over you. You’re going to dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. I’m spreading my tent over you and I’m going to move in with my grace and with my glory, and we’re going to turn this place into a holy of holies. Your hospital room can be a holy of holies. That little room you are there in suffering can be a holy of holies. God can spread His tent over you. Accept your suffering as God's gift. Listen for God's message. Draw upon God's grace. He'll turn your trials into tabernacles of glory.

Which leads to our fourth step: live for God’s glory. Now if Paul had said, 'I take pleasure in infirmities, I take pleasure in reproaches, insults, necessities, persecutions, distresses,' and he'd left out that little phrase 'for Christ's sake,' we'd think he was psychologically unstable. Nobody takes pleasure in weaknesses, in insults, and suffering, and so forth. But when you add that little phrase, 'for Christ's sake,' that changes it. A mother will suffer for her child. A father will suffer for his child. A soldier will suffer for his country. A Christian will suffer for his Savior.

And so here's the fourth step: live for God's glory. It's for Jesus' sake. It's not just for our sake, or for the church's sake, or for the family's sake. It's for Jesus' sake. And when you're doing it for Jesus' sake that gives you the greatest motive in all the world to glorify God. It's so marvelous that you go through suffering, you go through difficulty, you go through trial, and you draw upon God's grace and you say now God You be glorified. It's not important that I'm comfortable, but it is important that I'm conformable to God's will. It's not important that I have what I want, it is important that You accomplish what You want to accomplish. And you know what happens? God uses you to be a blessing. You see, you can be a blessing to other people. The Lord Jesus led the way, didn't He? He took a crown of thorns and made a crown of glory out of it. He took a cross and turned it into glory. The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. Romans 8:18.

Don't just try to escape suffering. If God heals, if God removes the pain, marvelous. Don't just try to endure suffering. That'll wear you out. Learn to enlist your suffering. Accept it as God's gift. Listen for God's message. Draw upon God's grace. And live for God's glory. And God will come to you and say, 'My grace is sufficient for you.' Don't give up, don't give up. Together we're going to bring glory to Jesus Christ.