My Grace Is Sufficient for You

In one paragraph

Pastor Ray preached from 2 Corinthians 12 on the Sunday after Christmas, returning to the series through the letter after the holiday break. The message followed Paul's account of a man caught up into paradise and the thorn in the flesh that accompanied it. The through line was a single promise Christ spoke directly to Paul, and which Pastor Ray pressed his congregation to receive personally: "My...

Read together

1. Psalm 100 worship the Lord with gladness and come before him singing with joy
2. Luke 2 Jesus is a light to reveal God to the nations and the glory of Israel
3. 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 main passage of the sermon covering Paul's thorn in the flesh and God's grace being sufficient

Talk about it

1. Pastor Ray pointed out that Paul refused to tell anyone what he saw and heard in paradise, saying he did not want people to think more of him than what they could see in him or hear from him. What do you think it looks like practically when a Christian leader points away from personal spiritual experiences and toward the message of the cross instead?
2. Paul received his thorn in the flesh at the same time as his vision of paradise. Ray suggested that God gave both the remarkable experience and the humbling difficulty together. Have you ever noticed God doing something like that in your own life, where a high point and a hard thing arrived together?
3. Ray described illeism, where Paul talks about himself as 'a man' at arm's length, and connected it to the idea that Paul knew what he would do in his own flesh without God's help. How honest are you, generally, with yourself and with others about what you are like without God's grace holding you up?
4. Spurgeon's quote said that whatever we are going through right now always feels like the biggest problem we have ever had, and that the hardest thing is to trust in God's grace for the present moment rather than for the past or the future. Do you find that to be true, and what has helped you rest in grace right now rather than only looking back or looking ahead?
5. Ray said the signs of a true apostle in this passage are not mainly the miraculous moments but the 'utmost patience,' the long, steady, day-to-day work of loving people and presenting the gospel over time. What does that kind of patient faithfulness look like in your own relationships, and where do you find it hardest to keep it up?