{"id":33193,"date":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/overcoming-handicapped-lives\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","slug":"overcoming-handicapped-lives","status":"publish","type":"sermons","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/overcoming-handicapped-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Overcoming Handicapped Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2005\/08\/19097.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n<p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I would like this morning to address the issue of\nhandicapped lives. This subject takes us all in. There may be some young\nsuperman here this morning who has never known any limitations, but I suspect\nnot. When you think about it, even Superman has his limitations. He has been\ndogged by Kryptonite for half a century; it has always been a problem to him. I\nhave never known a person intimately who was not struggling with some sort of\nhandicap. You and I realize that life is filled with all sorts of unsung heroes\nwho jump the hurdles and finish the race of life victorious.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That is why we admire men like Louis Pasteur, upon\nwhose titanic work so much of modern medicine rests. Especially when we realize\nthat at the age of forty-six he had a terribly debilitating stroke and was a\nparalytic for the rest of his days on this earth. We know that Beethoven wrote\nmusic while deaf, and Milton composed poetry while blind, and Jackie Joyner\nKersey in our age won gold medals, after having overcome polio in her\nchildhood. We begin to see that much of the great work of this world has been\ndone by handicapped people.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">How do they do it? What are the inward techniques\nthey use to handle things outwardly so well? Who among us doesn&#8217;t need to learn\nabout this?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I want to direct your attention this morning to 2\nCorinthians 12, where Paul demonstrates how he overcame a debilitating thorn in\nhis flesh, and the lessons he learned. Second Corinthians 12:2: &#8220;I&#8217;ll go on to\nrevelation and visions from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years\nago was caught up to the third heavenwhether in the body or out of the body I\ndon&#8217;t know, but God knows.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">He&#8217;s talking here about himself in a tremendous\nvision he had. This was not his conversion. That took place about twenty years\nbefore he writes this. This was about six years after conversion, a powerful\nvision from God up to the third heaven. Now in Hebrew cosmology the word <em>heaven<\/em>\nand the word <em>sky<\/em> are the same thing. In their cosmology the first sky or\nthe first heaven was where the birds and the clouds were. The second heaven is\nwhere the sun, the moon and the stars are. And way out there, they thought, was\nthe third sky or heaven. That&#8217;s where God lives.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Somehow Paul was caught up, he says, in that third\nheaven, which he describes here as paradise. &#8220;Whether in the body or out of the\nbody, I don&#8217;t know. I was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things\nthat man is not permitted to tell.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">In the moments of his greatest exaltation you and I\nfind the moments of his greatest humiliation. That&#8217;s verse 7. &#8220;To keep me from\nbecoming conceited because of this surpassingly great revelation, there was\ngiven unto me a thorn in my flesh, the messenger of Satan to torment me.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The word <em>thorn<\/em> doesn&#8217;t do it justice. When I\nthink of a thorn I think of the stickers on mesquite trees. But really the word\nmeans more like a tent peg. Paul says, &#8220;I&#8217;ve got this wooden tent peg in my\nflesh, and it&#8217;s twisting and causing me tremendous pain.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">What in the world <em>was<\/em> the thorn? Wouldn&#8217;t you\nlike to know what it was? The fact is, nobody knows what it was, and I admire\nPaul for that. Why, if some of us had been had had this thorn and we had\nwritten thirteen letters for the Bible, we would have told everybody, &#8220;Here&#8217;s\nmy problem. Here&#8217;s what I&#8217;m suffering. Here&#8217;s my sickness.&#8221; We love to talk\nabout our sicknesses and problems and troubles, but not Paul. Nary a word. A\nlot of folks have tried to guess what the thorn was.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Some folks thought his thorn was the fact that Paul\nwas just plain ugly. It could have been. In 2 Corinthians 10 he makes the\ncomment, &#8220;When I came to you, you said, &#8216;His letters are weighty but his bodily\nappearance is weak.&#8217; &#8221; What do you expect? He was beaten on three occasions,\nwith thirty-nine stripes with a cat of nine tails, five beatings with Roman\nrods, a torture designed to break the back and crush the vertebrae. He probably\nwalked bent over, with a hunched back, and was probably horribly deformed. He\ncould have been ugly.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Others have said, no, his problem was epilepsy. Why\nwould they think that? Well, in the New Testament world many folks thought\nepilepsy was caused by demonic spirits, and the way to ward off demonic spirits\nwas to spit at those suspected of being demonically possessed. In the book of\nGalatians Paul makes a comment that I really appreciate: &#8220;When I came to you,\nyou refrained from spitting at me.&#8221; So maybe he suffered from epilepsy.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Others have guessed that he had eye trouble. It\ncould have been. You recall that tremendous conversion experience he had when\nhe was struck blind and for three days he couldn&#8217;t see, and then something like\nscales fell from his eyes. In Galatians 6:11, you realize that Paul apparently\ndictated all of his letters. He had a secretary who wrote down what he said;\nwhen he comes to the end of the book of Galatians, Paul says, &#8220;Now you notice\nwith what large letters I&#8217;m writing to you in my own hand?&#8221; He couldn&#8217;t see\nvery well. In fact, in Galatians Paul says, &#8220;You love me so much. If you could\nhave, why, you would have plucked out your eyeballs and given them to me.&#8221; In\nActs 23 when he&#8217;s on trial before the high priest and the Sanhedrin, he makes a\ncaustic statement to the high priest and one of the soldiers slaps him and\nsays, &#8220;Don&#8217;t you realize you shouldn&#8217;t speak like that to the high priest?&#8221;\nPaul says in all innocence, &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t tell it was the high priest.&#8221; Well, he\nprobably had such bad eyesight he couldn&#8217;t tell.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Nobody knows for certain what the thorn was. Why\nwouldn&#8217;t Paul tell us? I&#8217;m convinced he didn&#8217;t tell us so that everyone could\nin one way or another identify with him. We know nothing about Paul&#8217;s trouble\nexcept that behind the scenes, just like the rest of us, Paul had to handle a\nsituation that he prayed to escape and could not evade. In one way or other he\nhad to settle down and live with it. That&#8217;s why it says in verse 8:<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I\ntried to get rid of this. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away\nfrom me. But he said to me, &#8220;My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is\nmade perfect in your weakness.&#8221; [And so Paul says] Therefore, I will rather\nboast about all my weaknesses, so that Christ&#8217;s power may rest upon me. That&#8217;s\nwhy for Christ&#8217;s sake I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in\npersecutions, in difficulties; for when I am weak, then I am strong.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">It is a crucial hour in one&#8217;s life when he or she\nstands open-eyed before his handicap. Every garden, of course, has its weeds.\nEvery life has its strife.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">There is a young boy who was born with a crippling\ndisease, and in the early years of his life he doesn&#8217;t realize that he&#8217;s any\ndifferent from the other children. But there comes a point in his childhood\nwhen all of a sudden it dawns upon him, and the way he handles that moment will\nset the stage for the rest of his life.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A young woman dreams of great days ahead and great\nsuccess in her life as do all young women. How old is she? Twenty-two?\nTwenty-five? Thirty? Thirty-four? Thirty-eight? All of a sudden it dawns upon\nher she&#8217;s never going to be a great poet. She&#8217;s never going to compose great\nmusic. She isn&#8217;t going to get that great job she envisioned herself with. It&#8217;s\nnot within her.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">How many of us step on the gas and are forced to\nadmit again and again that the power just isn&#8217;t within us? God didn&#8217;t give us\neight cylinders. In fact, God didn&#8217;t even give us six cylinders. He only gave\nus four, and those aren&#8217;t very good.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Maybe you wanted love and you missed it. Maybe your\nmarriage has become a tragedy instead of a thing of beauty. Maybe in your\nhousehold death has severed the tie that binds.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The great Scottish preacher Alexander Maclaren <\/span>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n          <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n            <span style=\"\" class=\"\">&nbsp;<\/span>\n          <\/span>\n        <\/span>\n      <\/span>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">said, &#8220;Please be kind to\neveryone you meet because everybody you meet is fighting a battle.&#8221; You know,\nwhen I was twenty-five and I first read that quote, I thought it was nice. It\ndidn&#8217;t mean a lot to me. When I was thirty-five it didn&#8217;t sink in a lot either.\nNow as I&#8217;m passing forty and looking back, he&#8217;s right. Everybody has a battle\nto fight.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The only <em>normal<\/em> people I know are the folks I\ndon&#8217;t know very well. You can break an arm and there it is right there in the\ncast, and we watch you come to church on Sunday morning and we say, &#8220;Oh, look.\nYou broke your arm. Hope it gets well.&#8221; Of course we know it takes six weeks\nfor broken bones to heal. In six weeks the cast will come off; and all will be\nwell.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">But how many of you this morning walked in here with\na broken heart? It&#8217;s an easy thing to see a cast on an arm, but it&#8217;s really\ntough to read a broken heart. We all know it takes longer than six weeks for\nmost broken hearts to heal. It takes years, even decades.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I know as a pastor I can walk up to some of you and\nlook you straight in the eye, and all I have to do is say one name and tears\nwill come to your eyes. All I have to do is mention one circumstance and you&#8217;ll\nfind that knot deep inside.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">How do we handle these handicaps? How do we deal\nwith these thorns in our lives? How can we access the power, the grace that\nPaul says God is ready to lavish upon us? <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">May I share five practical lessons about overcoming\nlife&#8217;s handicaps? Now, you realize there are many more than five. I&#8217;ve selected\na few thoughts that jump out from the page here that you and I might find\nuseful if we&#8217;re to access the grace that is sufficient for every situation.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">To overcome life&#8217;s handicaps, trust that they\nare no accident.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Lesson number one: Trust that handicaps are no\naccident. God&#8217;s plan is in place. Does God have a plan for Paul? Yes. It&#8217;s\nright here in verse 7. &#8220;Paul, I want to give you all kinds of revelations and\nvisions; but, Paul, if I do that, you might get trapped. I&#8217;m going to stick\nthis thorn in there deep. It&#8217;s going to keep you humble.&#8221; Was that in God&#8217;s\nplan for Paul? Yes. But Paul says, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want the thorn.&#8221; &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t\nmatter, Paul. My plan is for your humility because I can&#8217;t trust you with all\nthese visions.&#8221; So in slides the thorn.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Did God have a plan for us when he made us? Yes.\nPsalm 139 tells us God plans out every step for us for the rest of our lives.\nHe&#8217;s got a plan for us. Of course, you and I realize that few folks live out\nthat plan perfectly, and all sorts of things happen in a fallen and cursed\nworld. The thing to realize is nothing will happen that God didn&#8217;t allow.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Don&#8217;t you love that passage in the Book of Job in\nwhich God and Satan get to talking and Satan says, &#8220;I can make him curse you,&#8221;\nand God says, &#8220;All right, give it a shot&#8221;? And Satan says to God, &#8220;I can&#8217;t. How\ncan I touch him? You&#8217;ve put a hedge around him, and I can&#8217;t touch him. If\nyou&#8217;ll lower the hedge, I can get at him.&#8221; And God says, &#8220;All right. I&#8217;ll lower\nthe hedge just a bit,&#8221; and Satan goes after him.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Isn&#8217;t that nice to know God has a hedge around us?\nIn Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Job God raises a hedge of protection around\nus, and nothing can touch us without God choosing to lower it. He&#8217;s got a plan.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Of course you realize the Bible gives us reasons why\nGod allows these thorns. First of all, he needs to correct us. Hebrews 12 talks\na lot about this. God spanks us if we get out of line because he loves us.\nMaybe you&#8217;re going through a handicap or a thorn and you say, &#8220;Well, you know,\nI deserved it. God&#8217;s spanking me.&#8221; Maybe you say, &#8220;But I didn&#8217;t do anything to\ndeserve this.&#8221; And you realize the second reason the Bible tells us God slips\nin thorns is to perfect us. First Peter, for example, talks about how God\ndesigns to try us like fire. Like gold, we come out like gold because he wants\nus to be pure and holy with a special plan, so he gets glory.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Illustration:<\/span>\n      <\/em>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> One of my favorite heroes\nis Charles Haddon Spurgeon. I&#8217;ve always enjoyed reading his biographies. In\nfact, he&#8217;s often called a prince of preachers. He had such a heart for Jesus\nChrist. When he was thirty-five years old he got a horrible case of gout. As\nmuch trouble as they have treating gout today, they had a lot more trouble back\nin the 1880s and 90s when he was alive and preaching. Then he got kidney\ndisease, though they didn&#8217;t know what it was. But judging from his symptoms\nmany folks have guessed he struggled with a terrible kidney disease.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">From the age of thirty-five until he died, his body\nwas ravaged with pain. You say, &#8220;God, why would you do that to a man like\nSpurgeon?&#8221; You realize as you read his sermons that it was that physical hell\nthat knitted his heart so closely to that of Jesus Christ. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Thorns are no accident. They indicate that God&#8217;s\nplan is in place.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">To overcome life&#8217;s handicaps, say, &#8220;What an\nopportunity.&#8221;<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Lesson number two to overcome life&#8217;s handicaps: Say,\n&#8220;What an opportunity&#8221; instead of, &#8220;Well, what if?&#8221; At the end of verse 10,\nPaul says, &#8220;I delight in my weaknesses. I delight in these circumstances, in\nthese insults, in these persecutions.&#8221; What he doesn&#8217;t say is what I hear many\nof us saying: &#8220;Well, what if I hadn&#8217;t gone through this persecution? What a\nwonderful life I could have had.&#8221; &#8220;What if I hadn&#8217;t gone through that insult?&#8221;\n&#8220;What if I hadn&#8217;t had that thorn? Life would have been&#8221; &#8220;What a paradise I\nmight have had if only this hadn&#8217;t happened to me.&#8221; We forget the fact <em>nobody\n<\/em>gets to live out life on their own terms. It doesn&#8217;t happen. Nobody gets a\nperfect set of circumstances. Those who have the power are the folks who look\nat their circumstances and see a marvelous opportunity. &#8220;I rejoice in these\ncircumstances,&#8221; says Paul, &#8220;because I know God&#8217;s going to pour in the power&#8221;\ninstead of always saying, &#8220;what could have been what might have if only this\nhadn&#8217;t&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Illustration:<\/span>\n      <\/em>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> Ole Bull was a marvelous\nclassical violinist of the preceding generation from us. He went all over the\nworld giving concerts. In fact, probably the best concert he ever gave was one\nnight in Paris, when in the middle of a song his A string broke. Instead of\nsaying, &#8220;Hold it! Wait a minute while I restring this,&#8221; Ole Bull transposed the\nnotes and finished the entire concert using just three strings.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Now how many of us can relate to that? The most\nthrilling parts of life are when we can finish strongly on just three strings.\nI think if I could have only watched Ole Bull perform once I would have liked\nto have been there that night in Paris when he finished on just three strings.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I&#8217;m convinced Paul would have been tickled pink to\nget rid of that thorn but I suspect there are qualities of understanding\ninherent in Paul&#8217;s letters that would never have been there, had he not been\nforced to finish life on just three strings.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">To overcome life&#8217;s handicaps, stop\nwindow-shopping and enjoy your own inventory.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Lesson number three to overcome life&#8217;s handicaps:\nStop window-shopping and be satisfied with your own inventory.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Paul said, &#8220;God, please take away the thorn.&#8221; &#8220;No,\nPaul.&#8221; &#8220;God, how come Timothy doesn&#8217;t have one? How come he gets a healthy body\nand I got to struggle with this? God, Silas doesn&#8217;t have one of these.&#8221; To this\nGod said, &#8220;Stop window shopping and be happy with what you&#8217;ve got.&#8221; In 2 Corinthians\n10 Paul writes, &#8220;Stop comparing yourself with somebody else.&#8221; &#8220;Those who\ncompare themselves and their situation with somebody else are not wise,&#8221; says\nPaul.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">If we&#8217;re born to be berry bushes, and we produce\nnice ripe berries, many of us forget our berries and looking around say, &#8220;Oh, I\nwish I was that apple tree. If I was an apple tree, look at the big fruit I\ncould produce then.&#8221; Born to be apple trees, how many of us look around and\nsay, &#8220;Oh, look at that maple tree. If I could be like that big, beautiful\nmaple, look at all the shade I could give.&#8221; And born to be maple trees we look\naround and say, &#8220;Oh, look at that elm. If only I could have been graceful and\nstately like an elm.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">God gives each of us a special plot to till and\naccept. If the soil is thin, the rocks more numerous and the prospects smaller,\nthen so be it. That&#8217;s how life is. We must stop looking over the fence and day\ndreaming about what we could do with somebody else&#8217;s field. Stop\nwindow-shopping. The real test is not what you could do with somebody else&#8217;s\nlife or circumstances or health, but what do you do with what you&#8217;ve been\ngiven. In Jesus Christ we have each been given our own plot.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">To overcome life&#8217;s handicaps, recognize that\nthorns set the stage for spiritual service.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Lesson number four to overcome life&#8217;s handicaps:\nRecognize that thorns set the stage for spiritual service.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Don&#8217;t you love verse 10? Paul writes, &#8220;When I&#8217;m\nweak, then I&#8217;m strong.&#8221; We live in the American age of excuses. &#8220;Oh, my\nheadache.&#8221; &#8220;Oh, my arthritis.&#8221; &#8220;Oh, my dysfunctional family background.&#8221; &#8220;Oh,\nmy alcoholic spouse.&#8221; &#8220;Oh, my&#8221; fill in the blank.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I&#8217;m convinced that Paul would never have been Paul\nwithout that thorn in his side. You take some shining specimen of manhood who\nhas never had a handicap, with a sparkling personality, who&#8217;s had fortunate\ncircumstances and never known a sick day in his life and however energetic he\nmay be in his service to others, there are things he could never do that Helen\nKeller could.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Most of us will never appreciate the logic or the\nargument of <em>Paradise Lost<\/em> or <em>Paradise Regained<\/em>. Most of us will\nnever even read it. But one thing we do appreciate is old blind Milton sitting\ndown to write it. That does something for us. Most of us will never appreciate\nLongfellow&#8217;s translations of Dante. Then we hear that Mrs. Longfellow\naccidentally set her dress on fire and Mr. Longfellow tried to beat out the\nflames to save her life. He sat there by her bed a few days later as she died\nin terrible agony. Afterward, he sat down in that lifeless, motherless home and\ntranslated Dante to quiet his raging mind and did it marvelously well. Somehow\nthat does something for us.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">You see, these thorns set the stage for amazing\naccomplishments. When we&#8217;re weak, we&#8217;re made strong.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">To overcome life&#8217;s handicaps, find the\nstrength in God&#8217;s grace, which is energy enough when life gets tough.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Finally, lesson number five to overcome life&#8217;s\nhandicaps: Find the strength in God&#8217;s grace, which is energy enough when life\ngets tough.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">In verse 9 God says to Paul, &#8220;My grace is sufficient\nfor you. My power is made perfect in weakness.&#8221; His grace is enough when life\ngets tough. &#8220;I delight in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and\ndifficulties. When I&#8217;m weak then I&#8217;m strong.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8220;God, would you please heal me?&#8221; said Paul. &#8220;No,\nPaul.&#8221; &#8220;God, please, heal me. I don&#8217;t want to live with this thorn.&#8221; &#8220;No,\nPaul.&#8221; &#8220;God, I&#8217;m pleading with you. Take it away. I don&#8217;t want to spend the\nrest of my life with this thorn.&#8221; &#8220;No, Paul. You need it. It will keep you\nhumble. I&#8217;ll give you something better than what you ask for: I&#8217;ll pour in my\ngrace, Paul. Having my grace is a whole lot better than not having that thorn.\nI&#8217;ll pour in my grace, and when you need it, in every circumstance it will be\nsufficient.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8220;Well,&#8221; you say, &#8220;does God have enough grace,\nbecause I&#8217;ve got a lot of problems? You don&#8217;t know about my problems and\nhandicaps.&#8221; Well, God&#8217;s grace is infinite; he&#8217;s God, and he &#8220;is sufficient for\nyou.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A little boy on the seaside said to himself, &#8220;Boy,\nI&#8217;d better not take too much water out of this ocean with my pail. I might\ndrain her dry.&#8221; That would never happen. There&#8217;s plenty of water in that ocean\nfor all the water that boy could ever pail out.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Is God&#8217;s grace sufficient? Yes. His grace is totally\nsufficient for all of our thorns and handicaps and problems and troubles. But\nrealize that while his grace is sufficient, he doesn&#8217;t just slop it out of the\npail superfluously. He says when you&#8217;re weak, when you need it, he&#8217;ll give it\nto you. I think he does that to keep us coming back to him and keep us\ndependent on him. He doesn&#8217;t just slop his grace all over. But if you need it,\nyou&#8217;ll get it; I promise.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Do you realize that God doesn&#8217;t give martyrs&#8217; grace\nto secretaries? They don&#8217;t need it. He gives secretaries secretaries&#8217; grace.\nBut you let that secretary become a martyr and God will give her martyrs&#8217;\ngrace. God doesn&#8217;t give martyrs&#8217; grace to bankers. He gives them bankers&#8217;\ngrace. But you let some banker be on trial to be martyred for Christ, God will\ngive her martyrs&#8217; grace.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Illustration:<\/span>\n      <\/em>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> Not many years ago, a\ntelevision producer decided to do a docudrama on what it&#8217;s like to be told you\nhave cancer. So he arranged with a cancer specialist to place a hidden camera\nin his examining room, and then he got permission from a number of patients to\nbe filmed the moment the doctor walked in with the results of their cancer\ntest. They profiled three of those patients. Each one was told they had\nterminal cancer and only months to live. The camera caught it allthe shock,\nthe disbelief, the anger, the fear, the horror, the terror. It was all there as\nthe doctor said, &#8220;You&#8217;ve got terrible cancer. You&#8217;ve got months and only months\nto live.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">They followed these three individuals for the next\nseveral months. All three of them died, and it was right there on the\ntelevision screen. What stood out was the different ways that these individuals\nhandled their terror.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Two apparently had little faith, and the audience\nwalked through the anger and the bitterness that arose over those next several\nmonths and never really came to grips with it. They became estranged from their\nspouses and their families because the anger and the bitterness precluded their\nrelationships. Even up to death, their marriages were struggling and their\nfamilies were struggling. They didn&#8217;t handle it very well.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That is what made the third individual so inspiring.\nHe was a humble black pastor of a small inner-city church in his late sixties.\nWhen the doctor came in and relayed the news, &#8220;You&#8217;ve got terminal cancer, you\nhave only months to live; it&#8217;s very bad,&#8221; there was no outcry, no great anger,\nno bitterness. Patiently the man and his wife asked the doctor exactly what\nthis meant. The doctor described how he would try to treat it and the steps\nthey&#8217;d go through, and they thanked the doctor and they left. As they were\nheading out to the car, the camera followed along to eavesdrop as this pastor\nand his wife sat down on the front seat. They quietly bowed their heads and\nrecommitted their lives to Jesus Christ.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The cameras were there on his final Sunday, the last\nSunday he ever preached. He was very open about his illness. I&#8217;ll paraphrase\nwhat he said that last Sunday. He said, &#8220;A number of you have been asking me if\nI&#8217;m mad at God for this disease that&#8217;s been ravishing my body. I want to tell\nyou: I&#8217;m not mad at God. We live in a world that&#8217;s been cursed and fallen in\nsin and sickness, and death is just a part of it. And I&#8217;m not mad at God. In\nfact, I love God more now than I&#8217;ve ever loved him in my life.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">It was right there on the television screen. &#8220;And\ndon&#8217;t be sorry for me. I&#8217;m going to a better place where there&#8217;s no tears, no\ndeath, no heartache, no sorrow.&#8221; He continued, &#8220;Besides, our Lord Jesus Christ\nsuffered and died for our sins. Why shouldn&#8217;t I share in his suffering?&#8221; Right\nthere on television he began to sing without accompaniment in a broken, old\nvoice:<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Must\nJesus bear the cross alone and all the world go free? No, there&#8217;s a cross for\neveryone, and there&#8217;s a cross for me. How happy are the saints above, who once were\nsorrowing here, but now they taste unmingled love and joy without a fear. The\nconsecrated cross I&#8217;ll bear till death shall set me free, and then go home my\ncrown to wear, for there&#8217;s a crown for me.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">He died that same week and was ushered into the presence\nof the Lord Jesus Christ he had served all of his life. I think that&#8217;s what\nPaul had in mind. &#8220;My grace is sufficient for you, for when you&#8217;re weak then\nyou&#8217;re strong. So delight in circumstances and hardships and persecutions and\ninsults. For when I am weak, then I am strong.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Remember Jesus Christ? He&#8217;s the one who gave Paul\nthe thorn. But that&#8217;s all right. He knew what it was like. He&#8217;s the one that\nwore that crown of thorns on his own head. He knew what it was like to suffer.\nHe had a cross, too. The Bible says he shed his own blood that whoever believes\nin Christ might have their sins forgiven, and have access to God and his grace\nevery moment.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Roger Barrier pastors Casas Adobes Baptist\nChurch in Tucson, Arizona. He is author of <\/span>\n      <\/em>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Listening to the Voice of God. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> Roger Barrier<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\">Preaching\nToday<\/span>\n      <\/em>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\"> Tape # 179<\/span>\n    <\/h2>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtodaysermons.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.PreachingTodaySermons.com<\/a>\n      <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A resource of Christianity\nToday International<\/span>\n    <\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[306],"tax_ctp_authors":[2876],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[412],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[3780,4089,4116],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-33193","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-roger-barrier","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-difficulty","tax_ctp_tags-grace-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-handicaps"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Overcoming Handicapped Lives - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/overcoming-handicapped-lives\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Overcoming Handicapped Lives - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I would like this morning to address the issue of handicapped lives. This subject takes us all in. There may be some young superman here this morning who has never known any limitations, but I suspect not. When you think about it, even Superman has his limitations. 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