Gods Provision for Self Exaltation

So, I drove down from the mountains this morning, coming through Floyd Hill going east. The sun was just coming over the horizon. And there must be smog or something in Denver because you could see the ball of the sun, which you very rarely can see. It was pretty cool how driving from Summit County down to here. Start out in the darkness and then there's light. Kind of cool to see.

So, open your Bibles today to 2 Corinthians 12.6. Now what I want to do, I think I'm missing a slide. I am.

You guys are in luck, I'm going to cut it short. What I did was I took verse 6 and 7 from Kenneth Wiest, and I thought his explanation was pretty good. He said, For if I should desire to boast, I shall not be foolish, for I shall speak the truth But I am abstaining from boasting, lest any man consider me above that which he sees me to be, or above that which he hears from me. And with respect to the superabundance of the revelation, in order that I may not be exalted over much, there is given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to the end that he might constantly maltreat me, lest I am exalted over much." I like the language. So as you look at this, it's interesting.

Paul is in heaven, has been in heaven, don't know how long a time, but think about what's he been doing up there. He's been beholding the glory of the Lord Jesus face to face, but he's got to come back. So he comes down from this high place where we found out last week that he was marvelously received there. He felt, I belong here. I'm not here as a stranger. This is really where I come from.

And we can say that on the overhead it says, nothing adds more to the character of the Gospel than the great intimacy in which a man in Christ is received in paradise from J.B. Stoney. And I think that would be something that you could probably spend five minutes just thinking about what he's saying there.

We are, a man in Christ is received in paradise. Every one of us is a man in Christ. Every one of us is suited out to be in paradise. So Paul was a man in Christ, carried to the third heaven, a revelation of untold blessedness while in the light of it.

And you know, last week, I don't know if I said this or not, but I learned something last week that kind of helped me understand more about how the epistles go together. And I learned from J.B. Stoney that Romans, the book of Romans, is the teaching of a justified man on the earth. And along with that, it's the suitability of the walk of the justified man on earth. So Romans gives us not only the doctrine, but the behavior pattern that goes with it.

The other book that's like that is Ephesians. But it talks about the heavenly man. And you get the practice suitable to a heavenly man in Ephesians. So these are the only two books that Paul wrote that there's a code of practice within the book itself based on the position that he lays out before that. In Ephesians you get Paul in prison in Rome and the Lord says now You come and instruct the church about what it is to be connected to that man in heaven. That's what Ephesians is about. The rest of the books that Paul wrote, or letters, are not necessarily like that.

They're corrective. They deal with an issue that needs correction within the church. As an example, the Corinthians wanted to give the earthly man a much greater place than he deserved. And they did it extravagantly. So Corinthians talks about correcting that issue. Galatians, as we studied some years ago, wants to keep man under an orderly law. It wants to make him a religious man. And they said, we'll make him a teetotaler and we'll make him walk the line.

And you know what? It turns out that Galatians were probably worse than the Corinthians. In Colossians, Paul is in agony about their not beholding the head in heaven. For the great point is that I am united to a man in heaven, and that's the great truth. And then there's the book of Hebrews, and it has to do only with the earth.

So we must be like the immigrants as believers who when they arrived in the new country, the very first thing they did was they burnt the ships that brought them there. And they did that so that they took care of all possibility of ever going back. We're here. It would be nice if when we became believers, we burnt the ships and we're never going back. No possibility of return. When a man like us, a woman like us, realize that we were buried with Christ, we don't have anything to show before that. The great point is that all of us are united to the man in heaven.

Now, there's some consequences of this. The fact is, if this truth is to be acted out on earth, It would make us like the man in John chapter 9. And I know not a lot of you have been in 9 like we have on Wednesday night. But chapter 9 is a discussion between the Lord Jesus and the Jewish people and the Pharisees. And they won't have Him. They will not have Him. They won't accept Him. Even though He is the Son of God, and He's the Messiah. They don't want anything to do with Him.

Even though the heavenly man does not minister to the flesh, if I don't understand the heavenly man, then I don't accept the Lord Jesus for who He really is. He's not a member of society. He is the only man from heaven that makes him really different. So when you arrive at that point, you begin to realize that heaven doesn't minister to the flesh at all. And there's no place there for the flesh. Yet there's joy there, incredible joy, and it has a sound. There's an ecstasy there. A rapt sense of the soul is detained in the presence of the one who delights in it. Imagine Paul coming from that. Worship is delight in the person who controls it.

No one would have him here. He was no man's man. Like I said, he wasn't any member of society. He was from heaven. But when he comes back from the third heaven, look what happens. In the third heaven where everything was for him and everything suited him, he comes back to the earth where everything is against him. Everything is against him. I think this audience probably recognizes more than most that this earth is against us. It isn't for us.

So Satan buffets him. and buffets his strength as he maintains himself here by faith. As one is entitled to so great an elevation, he feels his weakness here as a man more than ever. But to faith, it is only the occasion to demonstrate the power of God, corresponding with the position given to him in Christ. So as he rested in Christ and was exercised to maintain what was revealed to him, so did he receive the power of Christ to maintain him in Christ. As surely here, where everything was against him, as in the third heaven, where everything was for him. And the measure of his strength was that he was in Christ not where there are hindrances in the third heaven, but He was in Christ here, where there was great hindrance, and where strength was challenged at every turn.

So He comes back to the earth, and what's the first thing He gets? He gets a thorn in the flesh. And He gets it from Satan. So He says in in verse 7, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations. For this reason, this is the 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. So I can't imagine coming down from the third heaven and the very first thing from this high place is to be immediately assailed by a messenger of Satan. No doubt to hinder me. And you know what?

The Lord allows it. He allowed it to happen. So I took this primarily from coming up from Hal Malloy, I thought it went together really good. To keep me from exalting myself, Malloy asked the question, how does Paul's sin nature and ours respond to God's revelation? How does it respond? Well, it desires to exalt itself. I know something that you don't know. Come to me, I'll tell you the secret. We get puffed up with that kind of knowledge. What's the solution that God gives to Paul?

He gave him a thorn in the flesh by grace. A thorn can be painful. It can be physical. It could be mental. It can be all kinds of things. And a thorn probably is shameful in men's eyes. If you look at Galatians 4.14, amplified, it says, And yet although my personal condition was such a trial to you, you did not regard it with contempt or scorn or loathe and reject me, but you received me as an angel of the Lord, even as Christ Jesus himself. So Paul is saying to the Galatians, you know, I didn't present the most appealing appearance to you, but you accepted me. God in His grace allows thorns in our life, in this case, to produce self-restraint and exalting self or raising ourselves above others. It produces humility where there's nothing like being nothing.

2nd Corinthians 3.5 says to us that not that we are sufficient in ourselves, to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of the Lord, or of God. I do know, and only because you're like me and I'm like you, that you do get puffed up with revelation. You do get puffed up when you see something. And you want to go and call people up and say, hey, look what I just saw, or look what I just... and I have put myself above you.

I thank God for the thorn, because my finger doesn't work on the phone so well. I can't call you. Or I start to think, well, maybe I don't know as much as I think I know. So concerning this, I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. So he goes to the Lord. He asks him to remove it. But the Lord doesn't do it. So he thinks, well, how about twice? He goes twice. And still the Lord doesn't do it. And he goes the third time.

So let's talk about what's Paul asking for? What are we asking for when we go to the Lord about a thorn in the flesh? I mean, look at the prayer requests. Look at the prayer requests that we have in all of our Bible studies in Sunday school. We're always asking God for mercy, right? We're always going to Him and saying, can't you just get this off of me?

I would do much better Does Paul get mercy? He doesn't. He doesn't. So let's look at the difference between grace and mercy for a minute. God always acts on the principle of grace. Grace will sustain me in any circumstance that I'm in. Mercy will deliver me from the trial. Grace is what is done inside of me. Mercy is what's done outside of me. Grace is according to the measure of God's heart. Mercy according to the measure of my need. Mercy is the depths from which we have been brought. Grace is where the heights to where we are brought. Like we talked about last week, what's more important? What I was saved from? or when I'm saved too. Paul had grace in respect to the thorn. But if he had been mercy, it just would have been removed.

So mercy meets your misery. Grace will sustain you in the middle of the suffering. So in verse nine, he says, and he said to me, my grace is sufficient. for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, would I rather boast about my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." So now we have an entirely changed man with an entirely changed attitude who, including the Apostle Paul, wouldn't go to the Lord and say, please relieve me of this thorn. We all would do that. It's natural.

But look what he discovers. At first he was trying to get rid of the thorn, but now, on the contrary, he says, most gladly then, therefore, will I glory in the infirmities that I have. Why, I say, how did that change you? He says, well, I've been to the Lord about it. His order of things. It is by beholding His glory that I have been brought around to His mind about it. It is not that I did this thing or that thing. I just simply went to Him about it. And what did He do? He morally transformed me to His will. Thus a very extraordinary change took place. It places us in quite altered us from what we were before. And that paragraph is from J.B. Stoney. So he goes three times. And the third time, there's the most wonderful change comes over him.

He's brought around to the mind of the Lord. He's transformed into thinking or moral correspondence with the Lord's mind about it. And now instead of being dissatisfied with the thorn, he says, I take pleasure in infirmities. I very seldom have somebody call me on the phone and say, I've got a thorn in the flesh and I really am taking pleasure in it. What a change has taken place.

How wonderful he is brought into the moral keeping of God's mind. He is not only resigned, but he can say most gladly, would I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. So what's the revelation helped him understand? It defines the scope of his faith.

As there is faith, so there is strength. Our strength is in our faith. And faith accepts nothing short of the revelation of God. And therefore, as there is revelation, there must be deeper and greater tribulation to test that faith. And to make known to my soul the power of Christ. In whom I am graced and blessed.

And I don't know if you've noticed, but the Lord doesn't usually help us out of our infirmities, meaning we get around them. It's important to see how he helps us in them. It's a great thing to see where our high priest is. He's gone through the heavens. And that's the heist to which he has gone. And He has taken us in spirit to that height where He is.

It'd be like a man throwing a rope to a drowning man, and he's throwing a rope from a paddle board. You don't have a lot of confidence that maybe he'll accomplish his task. But if I get a rope thrown from a superyacht, I'll have a lot more confidence. What he does is he helps me on the road to the place where he is.

He is there separated from sinners by the very fact that he is made higher than the heavens. He brings us into companionship with himself where he is. His priesthood is to help us along that path. So in regards to weakness, the Lord takes us really morally out of the weakness. And he gives Paul the sense of God's own grace and so makes him superior to the weakness. There's not a single miracle recorded in the gospel narrative which the Lord isn't performing today morally in our lives.

So if you have your Bibles open, turn to Philippians 4, 6 and 7 for a second. This verse, I think, coincides with the verses in 2 Corinthians very nicely. Paul says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

It's a really familiar passage because we talk about it all the time. Have you ever said, though, maybe I'll do it this way. How many of us have seen the peace of God? Have you ever known it for yourself, the peace of God? Somebody might say, oh yeah, I know what it is.

I've been to God about a thing. And I came away quite resigned about it." Oh, but that's not what we see here. Being resigned about it is not what he's talking about. The peace of God which surpasses all comprehension. You know that that kind of peace can't be comprehended by the natural mind? It's such an amazing thing. We wouldn't even know it out of ourselves at all, because it passes all understanding.

So you have to ask yourself, well, how do I get it? The first thing is I go to Him. I go to Him about it. And I get near to Him. And I actually acquire the very place that corresponds with that which is He Himself. That's where Paul had been. I can understand a person saying, oh, now you're speaking fables. No, I'm not. I'm only saying what's written here. I know very well how far short I am, but that's what it is.

I'm convinced that the Lord's greatest desire is to have us with Him where He is. He said in John 17, Father, I desire that they also whom You've given Me be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory, which You gave Me, which You have given Me, for You love Me before the foundation of the world. The word make known here does not mean that God doesn't know what you've come to Him about, but the fact that you were there in that place telling Him about it. And you know what?

You probably don't get your answer the first time you go. You probably don't get the answer the second time you go. Probably maybe sometimes the third time. I remember years ago, A close friend of mine who was a believer came into my office, sat down at my desk, and we were such good friends he didn't have to go through the secretary, just sat down and he said to me, Doyle, I'm mad at your God.

I said, why? And he told me this story about how God had put this circumstance in his life and he didn't want it to be there. And it was personal and it was interrupting his thought process. And he was really disgusted about it. So I said, have you been to him about it? He said, yeah, I've been to him two, three, four or five times. He hasn't done a thing. I said, did it ever dawn on you that the Lord loves your company?

He likes having you next to him. He likes having you there. And if he fixed it, you would go away and you wouldn't come back. He said, oh, and out he goes. Right. I ran into him about a month later. I said, hey, did you how was your situation? He said, oh, that's over. So the Lord took care of him.

But I think he understood that going to the Lord about a circumstance is really spending time with Him in His company, and He likes us to be there. And so sometimes look at what's going on in your life and why you had to go there, because He wants you there. So J.B. Stoney said, William Kelly said, Philippians used to be a very trying book to me till I saw it was the experience of a heavenly man. And now I see that I'm in another order of things, and there I am morally transformed and knowing the peace of God which passes all understanding. It is what no human mind can grasp. Once you get the principle of Scripture, you'll find it confirmed every place else that you look.

And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfect in weakness. Most gladly, I would rather boast about my weakness. You know, I took some of this from the Hungry Heart series. I thought it was really appropriate. One I read a month or so ago, it says the world The flesh and the devil say, be powerful. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit say, be powerless.

For my strength is made perfect in your weakness. The man in Roma 7 occupied with himself and his disappointment and anguish spring from his inability to find himself in himself the good which he loves. And then you look at the man in Romans 8, and he's learned that there's no good to be found in self. It is only in Christ. And his song of triumph results from the joy of having found that he is complete in him.

And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. A while ago, Paul is trying to get rid of the thorn. But now, on the contrary, he's glad. Therefore, I'd rather glory in my infirmities. I think I'd like us to see that these examples just to prove the effect of beholding the Lord's glory and my desire is that the Lord would Fasten on your heart, fasten on your mind, the wonderful excess of grace that has come to us through the gospel.

Think about this, that by the blood of the Lamb, I am without spot, and I can go into the holiest of all anytime. But also, it is the highest of all blessings, beholding His glory. And I'm transformed into the same image, into the very highest condition, into the harmony and agreement with that glory. The expression of his satisfaction, according to all of his attributes. You know, love is not apart from righteousness, and righteousness is not apart from love. But now, not a single attribute of God is not good enough. The circle has to be complete. I am made to share in the whole range of who the Lord Jesus is.

And how? How do I do this? By looking at God's Word. And what do I look for there? I look for His glory. I don't think any of us doubt in our minds that by the way people speak, that they don't quite reach this. And they say, well, we're looking at the Lord. And their speech betrays them. I say, you have left out of the word, the word glory. It is looking for the Lord's glory that you're after. Why is it necessary to put that word there?

Because it's the expression of God's satisfaction according to all the attributes of Christ and His nature, resting on this one person who has accomplished my redemption. And beholding it, what happens to me? I'm transformed. I'm transformed into the same image, the conformity to the glory of God. in the face of Jesus Christ, in the face of the One who bore my judgment and glorified God under the weight of it. And beholding His glory, I'm changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

So my prayer for us today is that the Lord would grant that we may not only hear about it, but understand it to the praise and glory of him who produced it for his name's sake. So most gladly, he says, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

C. H. Macintosh said here, all of his servants in the word stand before us as vivid illustrations of the value and necessity of broken material.

All had to be broken in order to be made whole, to be emptied in order to be filled, to learn that of themselves they could do nothing in order to be ready in the Lord Jesus' strength for anything and everything. You know, our greatest liability is self-confidence. Our greatest asset is Christ's confidence. to be willing to accept the crucifixion of Christ, to leave all of yourself, your plans, your longings, your abilities, your possessions, all of them at the cross, so that you only trust and love and live for the Lord Jesus, hurts a great deal. It requires an absolute venture of faith. But beyond it, God says, much fruit. And the way to it is into the ground and die. It is the only way. It's his way.

So therefore, most gladly, therefore, would Paul boast in his infirmities. Therefore, I am well content with weakness, insults, distresses, persecution, difficulties. For Christ's sake, for when I'm weak, then I'm strong. Hal had a lot to say about this that I thought was really interesting. He starts out with a question. What is your response to your thorn in the flesh? Can our response be the same as Paul's?

Is it possible for you to say most gladly therefore rather I glory in my infirmities or my weakness? Most gladly here means a sweet and pleasant gladness. Rather means a comparative adverb, rather than have my thorn removed, I'll rest in God's grace and I'll rest in His glory and my weakness. Purpose, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Rest upon me means to, in essence, pitch a tent. It means to descend, to abide upon, to be totally covered.

In closing, our Lord has more needs. Our Lord has more need for our weakness than for our strength. Our strength is often his rival. Our weakness is servant. God's way is not to remove our weakness, but to provide his grace and power in it. So for when I am weak in myself, I'm strong in Him. Let no one imagine that he can be effectively used in the Lord's service or even make progress in a Christian life without some measure of real entrance into the valuable principle, when I'm weak, then I'm strong.

Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you. We thank you for your strength and we thank you for our weakness and we thank you for all that you do to show us that we must be dependent on you totally and always so that the life of the Lord Jesus might be manifested, not only to us by beholding your glory, but to all those that we come in contact with. We thank you, Father. We pray in your Son's precious name. Amen.