In this episode of The Sound of Faith, Sharon Knotts guides us through an understanding of spiritual warfare and divine grace. Reflecting on testimonies of faith and the trials of Paul, she illustrates how God’s grace can make the unbearable bearable, unlocking the potential for divine power in our lives. Discover how embracing weakness can be a testament to enduring strength.
00:16:15 Personal Testimonies and Stories of Faith
SPEAKER 01 :
Greetings, friends and new listeners, and welcome to The Sound of Faith. I’m Sharon Knotts thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. If you’ve ever been in an extended trial of faith or fiery trial, today’s message is good news for you. Jesus said, my grace is sufficient for you. If you’re thinking you’ve heard it all before, think again and join me as we discover the significance… of each word in my grace is sufficient for you this morning we’re going to begin in second corinthians the 12th chapter and looking at verse 7. and 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. Now for this thing, I besought, I went to the Lord three times and I asked that it might depart from me. And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you for my strength is made perfect in weakness. So if it’s read in your Bible, you know that’s Jesus speaking. Back to Paul now. Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory or boast 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. This is one of the most powerful testimonies that Paul gives regarding himself personally. And he is referring to a time when he was in a continual battle, an ongoing battle against a spiritual adversary. He was under spiritual attack and he names what the thorn in the flesh was. So we don’t need to speculate and said, oh, it was probably this. And he probably had poor eyesight or he probably had this problem or that problem. All of that is erroneous speculation because the Bible tells you what it was. A messenger of Satan. That word messenger is Angelos. So it means angel of Satan. How many know that Satan has angels too? Because when Satan went up against God to try to dethrone him, he had talked one-third of the angels in accompanying him to go up there and try to dethrone God. And we know he got kicked out and they got kicked out with him. So now they’re on his payroll. And so he sent one of his angels with a specific assignment to buffet Paul. And the word buffet there in the Greek, the literal meaning is to strike someone with the fist. To punch somebody with your fist. But of course we know that he’s using it metaphorically. And therefore the spiritual application is to continually mistreat someone. in a violent way. I want you to understand it was not a physical thorn of sickness of any kind, but it was a spiritual thing. A spiritual thing. Amen? And where it says thorn in, I-N, the flesh, it really is incorrectly translated because it’s not referring to a preposition of in because that would mean a location. You know, I’m in the house. I’m located within the house. No, in the Greek, it’s what they call the dative case. And what that means is it’s referring to or indicating the recipient of the thorn. So in other words, instead of saying a thorn in the flesh, it would be better a thorn for. For the flesh. Amen. Let me give you a similar figure of speech that we might use. When something is just on you and on you and getting on your nerves and there’s no let up, you say, maybe it’s a person. He is a pain in the neck. Amen. And we have other such things that we say. But you get the understanding. Amen. So we’re talking about this messenger of Satan was a thorn for the flesh coming against him. And now this thing had going on for a while. And I have to believe that Paul was accustomed to getting his prayers answered. I think he was accustomed to having to pray once, you know, and maybe I’ll mention it again, but not to have to pray about it earnestly. Make a special time of prayer where it wasn’t just one of the things you’re praying about, but it was the prayer of the day. And three times he came to God and he was asking God. The word basalt there is very strong. We don’t use it anymore. It’s kind of archaic. But it means really to plead with, to plead with the Lord to remove this messenger of Satan. And where it says for it to be removed in the Greek, you have a choice of he, she, or it. And it would have been correctly translated for him to be removed. Amen. Because we’re talking about a person, a messenger of Satan, an angel. This is someone who possesses a mind and a personality. So for this angel to be removed. But God said, I have other plans for you. So God essentially said to him, I won’t remove him. I won’t remove the thorn. I won’t remove the messenger of Satan. I’m going to allow this warfare to continue because my grace is sufficient for you. You see, God sometimes allows godly temptations Upon our life. But when he does, it’s because it’s going to be accompanied by an increase of grace. And God’s grace produces strength. And his strength is magnified in our weakness. I always like to put it this way. My weakness is a showcase for God’s strength. Amen. When God wants to show off his ability to keep his children in a wicked and ungodly world where we’re surrounded by persecution in the natural and great persecution by the enemy in the spirit. And God wants to show I’m able to keep my children. He lets us go through a time of weakness. And then he allows his strength to be magnified. So God said, my grace is sufficient for you. Amen. And the answer was so powerful and so great, so much so that Paul stopped asking. And praying for it to be removed. He stopped asking for it to be removed. Instead, he started rejoicing. He started rejoicing in the grace that God was pouring out on him. He said, most gladly, therefore, what am I going to do? I’m going to take pleasure in these things. And when it says take pleasure, it’s talking about, I see this as a good thing. Now, instead of a bad thing, I’m now seeing it as a good thing. So he said, I’m going to boast that word that says glory. I’m going to boast. In this grace. Because it brings strength. It brings glory. And it brings power. Now I tell you. Who doesn’t want more strength? Who doesn’t want the power of God to rest on you in a greater way? Who does not want the glory of God to be revealed in your life? Amen. Amen. God revealed his glory to me he zapped me with his glory from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet and was going reciprocally up and down and up and down over and over and over to my whole body was like electricity but not in a in a way that was painful but in a way that was good and pleasurable and when did he do that when I was in the midst of breast cancer saga having had surgery and now facing they wanted me to have radiation and chemotherapy and after the surgery he waited till after the surgery folks then he zapped me with his glory amen so sometimes you got to go through severe trials to see the greater glory You don’t need the greater glory on those ordinary humdrum days. It’s when you get hit with a crisis. It’s when you’ve been in a long standing battle that seems to drag on and on and on. Like happened to me with the back injury that I went through so many years. Amen. So then he concluded in verse 10. Therefore. Now, whenever you see the word therefore, you’ve got to find out what it’s there for. Because you’ve got to go see what it said before it. And now you’ll know what it’s there for. He’s saying, because of his grace is sufficient for me. Therefore, because he said that my… power is magnified in your weakness so because of that he said i take pleasure i count it as a good thing in my infirmities and my reproaches and my necessities and my persecutions and in my distresses for christ’s sake i’m not going to take the time to do a word study and all these words or i’ll get way off my track but this would be a good homework assignment for you to look up in your Strong’s dictionary. Don’t look in the American Webster dictionary because you need to find out what the Greek means. And I don’t want you to be reading Greek because you probably don’t care. But you can look the numbers up in Strong’s. Amen? And it’ll give it to you. So I boast in these things and I take pleasure in these things for when I am weak, then I am strong. Doesn’t that sound like a hoxie moron? When I am weak, I’m strong. What? When you’re weak, you’re strong? Ah, because when I am weak, I am strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. It’s when I’m weak that his power is greater in me. When his power is showcased in me and magnified in me. Amen? So he says, I take pleasure. I choose to believe that this is a good thing. It’s not because I like what I’m going through. It’s not because I’m happy about these things that I’m going through. But I like the results. I like what it brings. The more Satan attacks me, the greater the power of God rests on me. Amen? Sometimes… When you were, you know, like preparing to preach on a Sunday morning a lot of times or preparing for something big, you know, that you’ve been asked to be, to do something special at something for the Lord. And it seems like you get a big attack. You didn’t sleep the night before. You know, it’s terrible when you’ve got to preach on a Sunday morning and you didn’t sleep all night Saturday night because you were fighting the devil all night long. And you wake up in the morning and feel like, I don’t even know how I’m going to stand up there, much less preach. But the devil is so stupid, he cannot, he’s got a bad memory. Because he forgets that every time he pulls that stunt, that then you get in there the best of your ability, dragon, but you show up and all of a sudden you get this supernatural strength. And then you can preach like a house on fire. Holy Ghost fire. Because then God sees you went through that attack and how weak it left you in your flesh and there was nothing you did to bring it on. It’s just an attack of the devil. And the devil shoots himself in the foot every time when he pulls that stuff. Because God said, my grace is sufficient for you. I want to tell you a true story based on this. My grace is sufficient for you. It’s about a family who went on vacation and during vacation, tragedy struck and their young child died. Now, the father was a Sunday school teacher. And when he was returning home from the cemetery where they had just buried his child, he felt all of a sudden a strong desire in his heart that Sunday morning that he was going to preach to his class the meaning of going through severe trials. And that’s a very brave thing to do when you’ve just buried your young child. Unexpectedly, you’re on vacation and tragedy struck. I don’t know why the child died because when I read this account, they did not give that detail. However, he thought, I’m going to preach on, you know, how to get through severe trials. Now, when he checked the text for that week’s lesson, because how many know a lot of churches have by the little pre-planned books for their class and you follow that along every week, whatever text they give you, that’s what you teach on. And apparently that was what he did. When he checked what the text would be for that week’s lesson, it was this verse, 2 Corinthians 12, 9. My grace is sufficient for you. So he tried writing his sermon, but he could not in all honesty say that those words were true for him. And he was struggling. He was struggling with it. So finally he got down and he knelt by his bed. And he pleaded with the Lord to make these words, my grace is sufficient for you, to make them true for him. And while he’s there pleading with the Lord, he looked up and he saw hanging on his wall a scripture plaque. And it said, 2 Corinthians 12, 9, my grace is sufficient for you. Now, here’s what happened. A few days before the family had left to go on vacation, his mom had given him this scripture plaque. And they were, you know, getting ready to go away and on. He says, well, you know, mom, while I’m gone, just hang it on the wall. And of course, on vacation is when this terrible thing happened. His child died. They had come home and gone through all that you have to with the funeral and the burial. And so when he looked up there, all of a sudden he said, oh, there was that plaque. His mom had hung it on the wall while they were gone. And now he starts wiping away the tears from his eyes so he could gaze at it because, you know, it looked different to him. And so he wipes the tears away and he looks up there and he realizes that some of the words are painted in different colors. The word is was painted in a very bright green. And the words my and the words you were painted in bright colors. And a message flashed through his soul. And he felt like the Lord was chiding him a bit to make him realize, why are you asking me to make my grace sufficient for you? It was though as the Lord was saying, get up and believe it and it will become true in your life. So the lesson that he took from this, and I’m quoting his words, never change God’s facts into hopes or pleas, but simply accept them as realities and you will find them to be powerful as you believe them. Now, when I read this story, it spoke to my heart and it touched me. And the Holy Spirit prompted me to take this verse. My grace is sufficient for you. And not just highlight my and is and you, but every single word in the phrase. And when I did, the power of each word creates a deeper meaning and a deeper confidence in God’s grace. So my grace is sufficient for you. First word, my. My is a possessive pronoun. Now you all know that a pronoun stands for a noun. How many know a pronoun stands in the place of a noun? And how many know a noun is a person, place, or thing? Very good. Gold stars to everybody. So now I ask you this question. Who does the pronoun my stand for in this verse? My grace is sufficient for you. God’s grace. God is speaking. And when you’re speaking about yourself, I don’t say Sharon’s blouse is green. I say, my blouse is green. Amen? So God is saying, my grace is sufficient for you. So my is the pronoun that stands in the place of God. So why do we care? Because it’s God’s grace. It’s not your grace. It’s not my grace. It’s not the preacher’s grace. It’s God’s grace. God said, my grace. And he’s the all-sufficient God. He’s the El Yonah, the most high God. He’s the El Shaddai, the all-sufficient God. He’s El Gibor, he’s the almighty God. You see that word El Shaddai. Name El Shaddai. Normally everybody says mighty God. Technically El Gibor is mighty God. But El Shaddai, let me tell you about it. Shaddai, going back to the Hebrew and Arabic languages, Shaddai means enough. So when a mama was be scolding her little ones who were making too much noise or getting on her nerves and she’d say, she died, she died, she died. She said, enough, enough, enough. You know, we would probably say, stop it, stop it. But sometimes we say, enough already. How many get the idea? See, I want you to know what Shaddai means. It means that’s enough. Now, mama is using it to shut down some bad toddlers. But when God is Shaddai, he’s saying, I’m the God that’s more than enough. I’m enough. You don’t need nobody else. I’ve got all by myself. I am more than able. I’m enough for you. when he says i’m sufficient for you he’s saying i am enough see enough doesn’t matter what it is little problem medium problem big problem huge problem colossal problem it doesn’t matter god says i’m enough he’s jehovah jarrah I’m the Lord who provides for you. I can more than provide for you. Amen? My grace. I’m Jehovah Shalom. I’m the God of peace. Shalom in Hebrew is so much richer than English. It doesn’t mean an absence of war or an absence of conflict. It means more than that. It means the presence. of God and all his goodness. It means his presence is able to deliver you, rescue you, heal you, lift you. Amen? To give you completeness, wholeness. That’s what the word means. Complete, whole, nothing missing, nothing broken. He’s enough. Amen? It’s not human grace. It is not human grace. Because that’s faulty. Man-made grace is weak. Anemic. It can be arbitrary. Amen? With favoritism and partiality. And it can be limited. It can be genuine, sincere, but only go so far and run out of resource. But not God’s grace. Not God’s grace. Just flip over to 1 Corinthians 10. And you know this verse, but we want to read it because we want to get the full impact of it. 1 Corinthians 10, 13. There has no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. So that means the devil is a liar when he tells you you’re the only one going through this. Nobody else knows what you’re going through because nobody’s had as bad as you have it right now. Or words to that effect. But God is faithful. Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able. But will with the temptation also. I like that there also make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it. So God promised I am faithful. I’m not going to allow you to be tempted. I’m not going to let the messenger of Satan buffet you above that which you are able. I’m not always going to stop it. I’m not always going to pull you directly out of that place. But I promise you this, I will make a way of escape. He didn’t say I’ll make a hundred ways, but he’ll make at least one way. And that’s why when you’re in that place, you’ve got to be looking for God’s way of escape, not yours. Amen. That you may be able to bear it. Amen. What an uplifting word of the Lord. My grace is sufficient for you. Inspired by the true story of the tragic loss of a child and how 2 Corinthians 12 9 was the catalyst for healing, the Holy Spirit prompted me to define each word of this phrase. The intention of each of these six words and their connective meanings create a dynamic perspective that brings strength and comfort for extended and puzzling trials. For the embattled believer, it makes the unbearable bearable and ushers in God’s glorious power. You can order My Grace is Sufficient for you on CD for a love gift of $10 or more for our radio ministry. Request SK210. Mail to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. or go to our e-store at soundoffaith.org, where MP3s are available. You will also find scores of messages on many topics by my father, R.G. Hardy, and myself. But to order, my grace is sufficient for you by mail. Send your minimum love gift of $10 to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Request offer SK210. Till next time, this is Sharon Knott saying, Maranatha.
In this episode of The Sound of Faith, Sharon Knotts guides us through an understanding of spiritual warfare and divine grace. Reflecting on testimonies of faith and the trials of Paul, she illustrates how God’s grace can make the unbearable bearable, unlocking the potential for divine power in our lives. Discover how embracing weakness can be a testament to enduring strength.
