Weekly Sermons

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Series: Facing Life's Challenges with the Apostle Paul
Date:
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:1-10
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Part 3 of Dr. Danny Campbell's "Facing Life's Challenges with the Apostle Paul" series.  This is Dr. Danny Campbell's sermon from the 10:15 a.m. service.

 

Sermon Notes:

Saul did not get healed but he did get a promise

If I could make a Mount Rushmore of already dead hymn writers, I would include the following 4 hymn writers: Isaac Watts (1674 – 1748), Charles Wesley (1707 – 1788), John Newton (1725-1807), and Fanny Crosby (1820-1915).

Fanny Crosby would not have said she made a difference for Christ in spite of her physical challenges, but that God was glorified in her life through them.

 

Read 2 Corinthians 12:1-10   

 

Saul gets to see Heaven                                                                                             V. 1-6

 

Some of you have had that same sense of alienation that Saul did, because your loved ones and former friends simply don’t love Jesus like you do. It can be very painful when you love Jesus but your loved ones don’t.

 

Based on fixed historical dates, we can say that Paul wrote 2 Corinthians around 55 AD. 14 years before that would be 41 AD during the Tarsus growth years.

 

The first heaven is the sky, the second heaven is outer space where the stars are, the third Heaven is where God’s throne is – Paradise!

 

Read 2 Corinthians 11:22-33.

 

Saul does not get healed of his thorn in the flesh                                                    V. 7-8

 

Note that Paul attributes the ultimate cause of his difficulty to God, but recognizes that the immediate cause of the difficulty was Satan.

 

Romans 8:28               Job 1                Deut. 29:29                 Gen. 50:20

 

If you have ever asked God to heal you and He said ‘no,’ you are in pretty good company with Jesus and Paul.

 

The same reason God may heal you may be the very reason He does not – for His own glory to be displayed through your story!

 

Saul gets a great promise from God                                                             V. 9-10

 

Paul was kept from boasting about what he could do, and instead became one who always boasted about what God does through weak vessels relying on God’s all sufficient grace to strengthen them for the tasks He calls us to.