Bobby Bosler: I don't know if y'all realize this, but some of y'all are going out recruiting in just like 45 minutes. Do you realize that? Is anybody freaking out yet? Anybody need a paper bag for hyperventilating or any of that?

You know, as I was meditating on this particular session, I think it's really good, the position that you're in, because it's real life. See, I think sometimes we imagine that maybe one day when God calls me to something and maybe I get to college or get out of college and into life, when I'm approaching doing something that God has called me to do, I'll feel confident. Maybe if I prepare enough and have everything, you know, just in its right place and I'm right where I want to be, then God will use me and I'll have confidence throughout. I'll just know that something is going to happen.

But I'll tell you what, what is probably more realistic is oftentimes prior to one of the greatest times God gonna use you, you feel like you're about freaking out, okay? You feel like the butterflies, like I said earlier. There's the incredible sense of nervousness. You feel weak.

You know, I don't know about you, we don't like to feel weak, do we? we don't like to feel unprepared. We don't like to feel like we don't have what it takes. And that's oftentimes why many times folks try real hard to, let's say, exercise to improve their body so they can be prepared. That's why oftentimes people try everything they can to put money away, right?

To save up so they can be prepared. Or we spend time and effort and money to educate ourselves, to make sure that we are prepared. And I just wanna make this clear. There is something to be said for preparing.

God prepared a ready harvest for you this afternoon. We should be as prepared as we possibly can be for life and for pursuing the will of God. And yet, you know what happens sometimes? You get beat up by life. you find yourself, even in a certain sense, feeling like you're not even worthy of God's grace.

You've messed up in so many ways. You raised your hand a few minutes ago and said, there are issues that I need to deal with and you haven't even had a chance to deal with it. And you might be sitting here in this room thinking, I'm about ready to go out recruiting. There is no way I'm ready for that.

And you know what can happen sometimes is because we don't feel ready, because we don't think we've got our ducks in a row. We don't feel strong enough. We don't feel like we're in a place where we ought to be. We feel like we're losers, like we talked about last night.

We stop short of the miracle. We end up being nothing but a weak, pathetic loser and nothing more. Can I tell you, young people, Like we said last night, God didn't save you to be a loser. He saved you to be a winner in all these things.

All these things perhaps being you realizing with a shock that we actually are gonna be getting into vans in 39 minutes and traveling out into Milwaukee and you actually are gonna have to explain that thing you stumbled all over yourself about in our workshop a few minutes ago and you actually are gonna be confronting Real people, scary people. They're going to be scary. And inviting them to come to this rally tomorrow night where they're going to be told they're sinners on their way to hell and be given an opportunity to trust Christ as their savior. And you might look at that and think, there ain't no way I'm ready for that.

There's no way I'm ready for that because I'm weak. Maybe even think because I've got issues in my life. Don't get me wrong. Those issues are a big deal.

Those issues need to be dealt with. But can I tell you, young person, don't despise the weakness that you feel right now. Because as I think we're going to see in the word of God, your weakness is the fuel on which the engine of God's grace runs. Turning your Bible with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 12, 2 Corinthians chapter 12, here this afternoon.

I'm going to say this evening, just know that whatever I mean, I mean now. I do feel weak here too, myself. As you're turning, I just want to ask you this question. And have you ever been seeking a solution to a problem?

Asking for help, searching for answers, only to have some rude person cut you off mid-sentence and just say, that's not what you need. Has that ever happened to you? That's annoying. I'll tell you, you call up technical help for something.

I got Frontier Internet down in West Virginia, and I'll tell you, the introduction installation service was amazing. But when I needed to call them up about something, I feel like every time I called, they were either interrupting or they spoke a dialect I didn't understand. I'm not even sure it was English. And along the way, you were asking for help.

I know what I needed, or at least I thought I knew what I needed in the process of talking to them about what I need. They give me some answer and say, oh no, oh no, sir, that is not what you need. What you really need is this or that or the other thing. And it's like, no, I think I know what I need.

It's frustrating, especially if you feel like that person that you're talking to doesn't really understand your situation. You ever call up technical help and you have to explain yourself to five different layers of people, right? You end up getting sick of it. You're thinking, could you just record and transcribe and forward?

That the next guy? Or could you at least tell them that before I get to them? But listen, if you feel like somebody isn't really listening and they don't really understand what you need when they interrupt you and say, that's not what you need. You kind of feel like saying, if you just listen to me, then you would maybe know what I need.

But every once in a while, someone offers you something that you've never even considered, something that's better than you thought you needed from the very beginning. In our text here in 2 Corinthians 12, what we find is Paul is in pain. In fact, if you look back at verse number seven, in fact, we'll look back at the beginning of the chapter. Paul says, it's not expedient for me, doubtless, to glory.

When you see the word glory in your Bible, particularly when somebody is glorying, here's how I want you to think about it's a fist pump. He's saying yes to something. Y'all do a lot of glorying here at the warmax, right? Whenever you score a point, your team captain's even got a little phrase that you use in order to glory, right?

When the scoreboard is put up, you glory. There's nothing wrong in glorying in these points, but he says here, it's not expedient for me, doubtless, to glory. He says, I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above 14 years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell or whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth.

Such in one caught up to the third heaven and I knew such a man, whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth. How that he was caught up in the paradise and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for man to utter. Of such in one will I glory, yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. He says, you know what I'm going to say boom shakalaka to?

You know what I'm going to say booyah to? My weakness. That's what I'm going to get excited about. That's what I'm going to cheer for.

That's what's going to get me motivated and elated. He said, verse six, For though I would desire to glory, in other words, in himself, I shall not be a fool, for I will say the truth. But now I forbear lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be or that he heareth of me. Verse seven, and lest, he says, I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelation, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.

You see, Paul's in pain here. God's done a lot of great things for Paul. He's experienced God in ways you and I couldn't even imagine. He was a man to whom God had entrusted the mysteries of the faith, as it tells us in 2 Corinthians 4.

He was a man that God spoke to. He revealed himself to Paul in a way none of us have experienced. And he says here in this text, lest I should get a big head about the things I've seen, the things I've done, the things that God has done in me and through me. Here's what God did to keep me in a place where he could bless me to keep me from being a fool.

Here's what he did. He gave me a thorn in the flesh. What is the thorn of the flesh? We don't know.

But one thing we do know is he didn't like it. He didn't want it. He wanted it to be gone. Was this an eye issue?

Some people think it may have been. Was this thorn in the flesh? Was it some physical issue? Maybe it was.

Was it a speech impediment? I don't know. Perhaps it was. Was it a physical thing that incapacitated him?

I don't know. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. But whatever this thorn in the flesh was, we know he didn't want it.

And here's why we know he didn't want it because of the next verse. He says, for this thing, I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And here's where the that's not what you need comes in. Verse nine, God spoke and he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee.

Got a couple of points I wanna give to you here today. I want you to notice first, Paul was making a misguided request. He was making a misguided request. Here's the thing, Paul thought he knew what he needed.

I don't know what the thorn in the flesh was, but whatever it was, I'm pretty sure he thought and maybe even said, maybe he even told God, Hey God, I could serve you a whole lot better if this thorn was gone, if this weakness was gone. God, if you would just take this problem out of my life, I could be so much more effective for you. God, whatever this is, it is hindering my ministry. It is limiting my capacity, my effectiveness.

God, I don't like it. God, I think you ought to get rid of it so that I can serve you better. And I'll tell you what, don't we often think we know what we need to? Maybe you find yourself in a situation you're very shy.

And maybe you in your mind think, man, if I could just learn to be an outgoing person, if I just wasn't so shy. Maybe you're here and you've got a speech impediment. Maybe you genuinely have some words you say, not the way everybody else says them. And you might say, man, if this would just be taken away from me, I could serve God a whole lot better.

Maybe you've got a situation in your past where you've done some things that you're not proud of. And maybe you think back to those things and you think, man, those things, those things that are in my life, if those things would have never happened, I could serve God a whole lot better. Maybe you're here and you come from a situation where you and your family don't have a lot of money. You're poor.

And maybe you think, man, if we just had even just a normal amount of money, maybe we could serve God. Maybe I could serve God better. And we think we know what we need. We think that if we had that particular job and that particular income, we think that if we had those particular friends, we think of this, if this feature of our character or our life was gone, that we could be so much more effective.

You see, I think Paul begged God to remove the thorn of the flesh because he thought he knew what would make him more useful and he thought he knew what would help him thrive. What is it for you? What is your misguided request? If my brother wasn't such a dork, maybe I could actually have my devotions.

I'll tell you what, I've got four kids, I've got a wife, I love all of them. But I will tell you, living in a trailer over these many years, it was difficult, honestly, because here's the deal. Here's how it works. You get up early in the morning to have your devotions because, you know, you're a preacher and you're supposed to do that kind of thing.

Everybody's supposed to do that. But you wake up in the morning and you move down the trailer and the whole trailer goes boom when you move, right? And that wakes up the little one. And the little one comes out and she's like, Daddy, I want something to eat.

And it's like, oh, she's up. Oh, I'm not going to be able to meet with God the way I want to. If only we didn't live in a trailer, then I could thrive. Maybe you feel like if your dad wouldn't yell at you so much, then you could really thrive.

Maybe you feel like if you, in your situation, if something was just different about you, if your parents weren't missionaries, maybe you could actually get ahead in life. and maybe if you weren't here constantly having to work in college just to stay a student, maybe then you think you could really thrive. I remember back when I was a student here at Baptist College of Ministry, I remember I worked for the cleaning crew. That's what they called it back in those days. I don't even know what they call it these days, but I remember after every service, it was my job, one of my jobs, I should say, one of my responsibilities to go around with the backpack vac, as we called it, and to vacuum up certain parts of the building.

And I remember very vividly at a certain time, I remember thinking, man, after every service, when God has moved in my heart, I have to go and do this thing and get distracted by that when everyone else could go home and just sit on the message and dwell on it and think on it. And I remember thinking, man, if I just didn't have this dumb job after every service, then I could really get something out of the preaching. What's your misguided request? See, we often assume that if God would just fix this one thing, whether it's your health, whether it's your finances, whether it's your relationships, then finally we could live the victorious Christian life.

See, Paul asked God three times to take this thing away. And he thought, let me ask you, what is the one thing that you think is holding you back? The one thing in your life? I'm not talking about sin.

We need to deal with sin. That's not what I'm talking about. What is the one thing in your life? Is it your parents?

Is it how they interact with you? Is it the fact that maybe they're not super spiritual people? That's a thing sometimes. Is it your home?

Is it your neighborhood? Is it your church? See, we look around and we point fingers at all these other things and we say, this has caused me to be disadvantaged. And if this thing that causes me disadvantaged, to be disadvantaged were removed, then I could really thrive.

Then I could really serve. Then God could really use my life. we think we know what we need right but what if we're wrong see the misguided request that was the problem he thought if this one thing would change whether it's this one thing maybe you get a job it's your employer that's holding you back maybe it's this one thing you don't think you have what it takes within you and if only you felt more confident if only you were more educated If only you knew more, then, then God could really use you. What if you were wrong? You see, the problem was, is Paul not only had a misguided request, he had a misunderstanding of the supply.

Look at verse number nine. This is a famous verse. You know it. You've heard it preached many times.

And he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. See, here's God's answer to the misguided request. You come and you say, God, if you would change this one thing, then I could serve you. If you change this one thing, then, then I'll really thrive.

But God says, no, that's not what you need. You don't need a different set of parents. You don't need a different income level. You need me.

Here's something even better. See, God didn't change Paul's circumstances. He changed Paul's understanding. Paul asked God for relief.

Oh God, relieve me from this thing. But here's what God gave him instead. God did not give him relief. God gave him grace, his divine strength.

Here's the funny thing about it. The ironic thing about it. Paul wanted to be strong. And so he asked God to take away his weakness.

Isn't that how we often are? We want to be strong. I think most of you want to be strong when you go out recruiting this afternoon. And so you want to be filled with strength.

And so you think I've got to be strong to be strong. But what Paul, what God is saying to Paul here in this passage is no, you don't got to be strong to be strong. You got to be weak to be strong. Tell a little story I think that might help us understand why it's so to understand this.

I've worked with Minutemen for many, many years. I'm continuing under the generation, though I'd become a pastor in West Virginia. But one of the things that was kind of a newsflash to me was when I got my first truck. I got a 2001 Ford F350 with a 7.3 liter diesel.

This is where all the men make the man noises, right? And everything is a good truck. The word people normally say is, oh yeah, bulletproof. Yeah.

All that. Okay. Well, one of the things that I learned is diesel trucks are different than gas trucks. For this reason, you put gas in gas vehicles and you put diesel in diesel vehicles.

And if you get that wrong, things don't work very well. Now, before you think I did it, I didn't do it. But with Minuteman, we had a guy who did. Remember that Dr.

Jim? Probably happened a couple of times, but I don't know. I just have one particular story in mind. There's a fella who here in Menominee Falls, I think it was the excursion, if I remember right.

He took the excursion just down the street to the BP right around the corner and he filled it up. Now here's the thing. Normally at diesel pumps, the handle is green, right? It's different.

Normally the regular gasoline handle is black and the diesel pump is green. Well, this fella didn't realize at BP stations, it's swapped. And so he pulled the truck up, probably swiped the Minuteman credit card, put, I think the green handle in and filled the thing all the way up. I can see Dr.

Jim's blood pressure rising in the back there as he remembers this, right? Filled the whole thing up with gas, a diesel vehicle filled up with gas. I don't remember if he got back to the house or not. I don't remember.

Oh, he looked at the receipt. Oh, it must've gotten back. He looked at the receipt and realized, Houston, we have a problem. We have a major problem.

I don't know. I imagine they probably didn't try to drive it anywhere, but if they had, they would find out very quickly, you don't run diesel engines on gasoline. And if you try, it ain't gonna work out too well. The engine of God's grace runs on weakness, not strength.

Can I say this? God's got an engine inside of you. It's Christ in you. That engine is powerful.

It's the reason why he said you are more than conquerors. God's grace is indeed sufficient. God wants to take you and enable you and give you his strength. But here's the thing.

If you try to fill up your tank with human strength, I'll tell you what you will end up finding out. It's not how that works. It's not how that thing runs. That engine of God's grace will not work without your weakness.

You see, he was missing a proper perspective on this. I want you to notice God changed his perspective through this. He said, verse nine, and he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee. Your misguided request is God to take the weakness away, take the problem away so that then I can thrive.

God says, no, I'm not taking the weakness away because my grace is sufficient. My strength is made perfect in your weakness. See, the perspective God was trying to get him to understand was not just the supply, but he was trying to get him to understand that he needed God's grace, not his own personal strength. You see, here's the thing.

You got to recalculate and reassess how you see yourself and how you see God's grace. What you need is not a different set of circumstances. What you need is not a different diagnosis. What you need is not a different income.

It is not a better vehicle. It is not a new job. It is not a change of scenery. Young people, what you need more than anything is you need God.

You need God. And because Paul began to realize that here in this passage, He was able to totally change how he viewed his weakness. Look at verse 10. This is when he tells us his new perspective here.

He says, therefore, because of what I just learned, that the power of Christ rests upon me as I'm weak. Actually, we go back to verse nine. He said, most gladly, therefore, will I rather. Instead, he says, glory in my infirmities.

You know, you don't typically do a point cheer when the other team scores something, do you? You normally do it when you got the point, when you got the trivia question. And here Paul is saying essentially this, here's what I've learned to fist pump when I'm weak. I will tell you, I will tell you so many times, even over the last couple of days, so many times, even over the last several months, I feel absolutely dried up, wrung out.

I'm not ready sometimes. There are other times, man, I tell you, I had some carbs before I went to bed and I wake up feeling like I got a hangover. I'm telling you, I don't have a hangover, but it just felt like it, just to be clear, okay? There are times I felt wrecked.

I remember just a couple of weeks ago, got up on Sunday morning, I felt like a train had hit me. And it's one of those things where you get up and you think surely a cup of coffee will change this. And it didn't. And I remember getting up thinking, just, I keep getting moved.

You know, I just start moving, get a shower. I'll wake up then. Didn't do it. I think I'll get up and preach in Sunday school.

That ought to help that, right? And it doesn't. And I'm coming into the morning service thinking, oh God, I don't have anything. This is going to be bad because I'm weak.

God, if you would only wake me up a bit, then we would have a good service. But I remember specifically thinking about this text and this verse. And I remember in my mind, there was a transaction that took place in my heart. And I remember I realized, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Hold on. Hold the phone. I'm weak. I'm tired.

This is awesome. This is going to be a great service. And you know what happened in that exact moment? warmth flooded my soul. God's grace filled my life and God worked.

Telling you what, young people, that is not something that we ought to experience once in a while. That's something we ought to experience every single day. Listen, you come into a situation, maybe you've got something you've been looking forward to for a while, some opportunity of ministry or service, and then you know the killer? You get sick right before.

I hate that. Don't you hate that? You get sick right before and it's like, oh man, this just ruined everything. Maybe not.

Maybe this is exactly the situation that God put you in so that you could find his grace, but it does require a recalculation in your mind. You see, you need to reassess not only your needs, you need to recalibrate your response. Listen, young people, when weakness looms in your life, you need to hit the praise button. Praise God, this is going to be good.

When strength sags, hit the dependence button. Say, God, I need you. I don't got anything. Lord, you've literally brought me to this moment and this point you brought me to this weakness and Lord I want to say I need you this is going to be amazing when sadness creeps in hit the joy button listen Paul began to glory not in his strength not in circumstances being the way he wanted them to be but look at what he says he glories in now He says, therefore I take pleasure, verse 10, in infirmities.

Infirmities literally are weaknesses. These are strengthlessnesses. These are the areas where you feel like you come up short. These are the things you think, I just can't do that.

I don't have that. I ain't there. This is not my strength. I will tell you what, you put me in front of a website.

I know how to build one of those. you put me in a house where I'm supposed to pick the colors and decorate, or you put me in a situation where I'm supposed to pick out shrubs for the front of the church. I don't have a clue. That is not my area of strength, right? And we all have our areas we prefer to avoid because we don't think we can do it.

Paul says, those are the areas I get excited in. I take pleasure in infirmities. He says, I take pleasure in reproaches. What's a reproach?

It's when people insult you. So when people verbally attack you, you ever have a situation where you get blasted for someone for no reason? And you might look at that and say, oh man, that just spoiled my day. Oh man, this is awful.

I can't believe they said that. What in the world? Why are they doing that? This ruins everything.

No, when he started getting reproached, Paul started getting excited. He takes pleasure in infirmities and reproaches. He goes on and he says necessities. Necessities.

What are necessities. These are pressing needs. This is when it's not just that you do not have, it's that you really need what you do not have right now. I remember as a teenager, I worked at McDonald's for a little while.

I'm not ashamed to say it, but I worked at McDonald's for a little bit. And I remember at one point, my mom, she brought me aside. This was leading into my senior year of high school. And she said, Bobby, your father and I have prayed and we thought we'd like to put you into a Christian school.

And we noticed you were really interested in Westchester Christian School in Westchester, Pennsylvania. And we'd love for you to go there. And I remember the first thought was, we don't have the money for that. There's no way that we could ever have the money for that.

And I remember that put us in a situation where we didn't have what we needed. But you know what God did? He took care of it. He did what we desperately needed.

There have been so many times throughout my college education as I was here where I didn't have enough money to pay for the school bill. And I hated it. I hated being a poor college student. I could not wait till I was never going to be a poor college student ever again.

I hated the fact that the bill would come in and show up in my box. We used to have blue bills at the time, folded just kind of part way up. And remember, I'd get those and I wouldn't want to fold them down because I wouldn't want to know how pressing the need was that I knew I didn't have any money for. Didn't like it.

I hated the pressure of those things. But you know, when you begin to see God work and you begin to realize that is exactly where God works, you can get that blue bill and think, I don't care what the number is. This is going to be awesome. Okay.

He says persecutions as targeted hostility. We talked about that last night. We Here's the thing, young people, when you begin to realize that when you are weak, that's where God shows up. It's literally the fuel that causes the engine of God's grace to roar in your life.

When you begin to realize, oh no, I can't do this. Oh no, I don't have what it takes for this. That's not a reason to get upset. That's a reason to get excited.

My wife and I, we have this thing, we talk about roller coasters. She hates them. I love them. Who's a roller coaster fan? okay there's a few all right who thinks it's really stupid to put your life on the line to ride in a stupid box on a track okay you're like my wife in that yeah you know a roller coaster if you're always thinking you just might die is literally traumatic every time it is a trauma you sit in there the whole thing shakes right you go up you down your stomach goes the opposite down and then up right and you're riding on this thing and you get off and you think why in the world would I ever do that again?

My wife does not like roller coasters. She doesn't like me to put my kids on roller coasters that we do it from time to time anyway. Um, but, uh, one time she decided I am going to go on a roller coaster with you just to, I just realized my wife is watching the live stream. Hi dear.

Um, love you. She was going to prove that she could go on a roller coaster with me. So there's a gigantic roller coaster. Don't even remember what's called or where it was. but she got on it with me and she went on the roller coaster and the entire time she had her eyes closed like this and just hung on.

She had no reason to open her eyes. It was literally the whole reason she was on it was to prove that she could. I, on the other hand, was going, open your eyes, dear. This is awesome.

Yeah, this is great. I'm not putting my wife in a bad light here. Some of us can go through the same ups and downs of our weaknesses. And some of us are closing our eyes, gritting our teeth, and hanging on for dear life.

We're traumatized by our weakness. And others of us who've learned the power of God's grace. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. By the way, it's nine minutes now.

Click, click, click, click, click, click. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click. You get to the top. And instead of thinking Jesus come quickly.

Instead, we're thinking. This is going. To be awesome. You see.

His perspective was he takes pleasure now in infirmities because he understands that God's grace doesn't work through human strength. He understands that God's grace only runs on the fuel of our weakness. So when he's got a big old bottle of weakness in his life, he thinks, Amen. This is going to be amazing.

You know, God's grace doesn't flow through self-sufficiency. It flows through surrender and dependence. Sometimes God says no to you, young people. You wanted to change your circumstances.

And he says, why would I do that? This is literally the greatest thing that ever happened to you. See what you think you need. Isn't what you truly need.

What you truly need is grace. what you truly need is God. With that being said here this afternoon, I want you to know whatever it is you're facing here today, God wants to use you this afternoon. I know not every one of us are going out recruiting here this afternoon, but especially for those of you that are feeling a little weak, good. If you're feeling pretty confident, probably not so good. so let's get desperate with the Lord in fact what I'd like to do is this we've got a couple minutes I know like I said I know the lower squads they're not going out recruiting here this afternoon but really I think it would be perfectly appropriate for us for just a couple minutes to pray