This sermon emphasizes the concept of embracing weaknesses and challenges as opportunities for God's power to be manifested in our lives. It discusses how God's ways often involve allowing difficulties to reveal our need for His strength, leading to a deeper reliance on Him. The speaker highlights the importance of brokenness as a pathway to greatness and how God's wisdom is displayed through giving us 'thorns in the flesh' to humble us and point us to Christ.

Jesus might be made manifest in our body. Oh, most gladly therefore would I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. It's a staggering statement, beloved, but in the school of God, in case you don't know it, God will not rest until that is your testimony from your heart. In case you don't know it, in the school of God, God is not interested in your comforts. There will come a day when God requires of you to say from your heart to him, therefore I take pleasure in infirmities and weaknesses, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then am I strong. Oh, beloved, be honest, even if it's going to be just one night in your whole life, in a meeting you're required to do so, every one of you, be honest. If it wasn't for... if you had no weaknesses, no infirmities, no problems, no difficulties, no trials, you would never once in your Christian life had to look away from your own strength and had to look to God for his strength for you to be able to survive. You would never once have proved the power of Christ in your life. You would never once have had to. You would have had your own strength to do it. God would never once have had to make his power available to you. Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. God would never have had to make his power available to you to survive if it wasn't for all these things that make you know you are weak, and without his strength you cannot survive. God wants that in the school of God from every one of you. He's not interested in your strength, child, in your abilities, in your gifts. Don't you know that that's why the things you cry out, Paul? Three times he cried, not just three prayers, three times he got so desperate with something in his life that the devil sent. It was the devil, but allowed by God, because God knew this is needed. For what I seek in his life, the fruit I'm looking for is not the fruit you're looking for, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. There's no comprehending fully the thoughts of God and his dealings with us, but do you honestly believe God just has lost control or isn't even looking when you despair over things the devil is bringing in your life? Why does God leave these things that make me feel weak? Oh, Jeremiah, if you give up this mistaken toll of distrust and disdain, cleansing your own heart from unworthy suspicions concerning God's faithfulness, you shall be as my mouth, Jeremiah. But if you don't, child, I cannot use you again. How can you install faith in others if you have no faith in yourself, if you have no faith yourself, child? Do you know God does something to all of us when we're saved and in the school of God, and that happens the day you get saved? You enroll in a school. You enroll in God's school, and trust me about this, the day you enroll in the school of God, and you want to serve God, and you want to walk with him, and you want to be your best for him. God does something that almost seems cruel, that seems cruel and unreasonable. God gives every one of us, no matter who you are, a thorn in the flesh, a thorn in the flesh. Do you know what a thorn in the flesh means? God gives us something that handicaps us. Don't doubt this. Don't doubt this, or you won't know anything about what's going on in the heart of God or in life once you are saved, if you doubt this. He does something that makes you feel like, poor, I've got to get this out of my life. God has to deal with this. God has to deal with this thing in my life. But the devil is simply to buffet me, you know. Do you know what buffet means? To punch so hard, literally, that I lose balance. Some think God lets the devil have consciousness of a new life. That will literally make you lose all balance. God does that. God stands back and allows that. Why? Why does it seem God would allow such a cruel, why would God? It seems like it's cruel in the heart of a perfect God, that I don't want this. I don't want this. I've sought God three times. Three times he laid down everything in life. Not just three prayers. He laid down life. He withdrew everything in his despair of what was in his life, and he sought God to deliver it, that it might depart from it. How do you know God didn't? Paul, my ways are not your ways. God didn't deliver it. I want this thing, son, to make you bring fruit that you're not looking for. The things you think God needs to deal with is not the things God wants to deal with. The things you're despairing about are many times the things God knows he's not going to take out of your life, because that's going to bring the fruit you're not looking for. God's looking for different fruit than you and I are looking for in our lives, you know. God's looking for brokenness. And let me tell you, young man, brokenness is not a tragic thing. It's the first step to greatness. There's no religion. There's nothing. There's nothing to compare with Christianity. There's only one way, friend, in God's eyes, and that's to get you broken itself. And you can see that written across a man a mile away, if God isn't having his way. It's not nice to see it in a Christian, but, oh, Christ begins to come out through a man. When God starts making a man conscious, he's nothing. He's too weak. His gifts aren't good enough. His own strength isn't good enough. And he begins to reveal Christ. Oh, God's ways are not our ways. God gives us a thorn in the flesh, deliberately, in mercy, in love, in wisdom that you and I don't have. He gives us a thorn in the flesh. The messenger of Satan to buffet me, to hit me hard. It is Satan sent by Satan to destroy me, allowed by God to make me. Do you honestly think God loses control when the devil comes and really makes you lose balance and stagger? You're so staggered, you despair. What was despair? Don't doubt that. A thorn in the flesh. You know, when I was a little boy, now, let's see how little I was. I suppose as little as you were, right in the middle there. Now, everyone is going to look at you, so that's how terrible I am to make you get embarrassed. All right, how old are you? Yes, ten, that was it. I was about ten, don't doubt it. I probably looked a lot like you. Well, as a boy in Africa, in South Africa, my daddy didn't like a city very much, but he had to be there, but he built our home on the edge of the city, way out on what we call the wilds. I tell you, you people call woods like forest what we call forest, but in Africa we get thicket. It's like what you people would refer to as jungles, you know, it's really thick. You've got to be small to be able to get in there. You know how we got in, the monkeys and the baboons? They made paths through all the thickets. And did we love those paths? Well, we were like monkeys. The big people couldn't get in there. We would run, you know, whoo, you couldn't believe it. You know, like the back of our hands, all the monkey trails through all the thickets, what you people call jungle. Oh, big people would be scared to venture in there, many of them, but that was our playground, and a little crowd of boys, we would run. You wanted to see me, I was always the first, you know, I was very proud of it. Always ahead of everybody. And we even went on the monkey ropes, you know. They didn't like it, they chased us one day.