Teach me the Value of My Thorn

Happy Sabbath. You look beautiful from here, and thank you

all for being here. I praise God and I thank

the pastor of this church, Pastor Mike Oxentenko, for the

privilege I have of sharing from the Word of God today.

May our time be well spent as we listen to

the message God has in store for us. Let's pray,

Father God, we come to you as we are about

to listen to the message that you have for us.

And we claim the promise that a word that goes

from You will not return until your void, until it

accomplishes its purpose. So as your word is being delivered today,

made accomplish its purpose in each of our hearts and

minds and lives. That is our preyer to you in

Jesus' name. Amen. We just celebrated Thanksgiving, and I am

sure all of us thank God for the blessings of life.

I wonder how many of us thanked Him for the

thorns in our lives. I'm sure we all thanked him

for the blessings, but how many of us thanked Him

for the thorns and the ministry of thorns in our lives?

So today I have entitled the message teach me the

value of my thorns. George Mathieson was a minister of

the Gospel, an author, a human writer. One of his

most well known hymns is all Love that will Not

let Me Go. And he was also a preacher, and

he was off and referred to as the blind Preacher.

He began losing his sight at a very early age,

and by the time he was twenty, he had almost

completely lost his sight. And when he revealed his condition

to his fiancee, the fiance decided that she would not

like to be married to men who was blind, and

she broke off the engagement. George Matheson loved her dearly

and he was heartbroken. But despite the hardships and the

challenges that he faced due to his disability, George met

his Han recognized the value of trials, the value of

the thorns God, in his wisdom and love placed in

his life. And this is his prayer. He wrote this prayer,

and he said, God, I have never thanked you for

my thorns. I have thanked you a thousand times for

my roses, but not once for my thorns. And he said, Lord,

teach me the value of my thorns. And he continued,

show me how I have climbed to you. How I

have reached you through the path of pain. Show me

it is true tears, I have seen my rainbows, Jesus said,

in this world you will have trouble. None of us

lives a trouble free life. We all face hardships, challenges, difficulties.

We all have torns in our lives. They come in

varying forms. Some are physical in nature, financial in nature,

social in nature, relational in nature, spiritual in nature, you

name it. They come in varying forms, and they also

vary in intensity. Some are mild, some are modern, and

some are severe. But regardless of their nature or intensity,

one thing is certain. None of us enjoys challenges and trials.

None of us enjoys thorns in our lives. And what

do we do? We murmur, we complain, and we seek

God to remove them from our lives. However, have we

ever considered the value of the thorns God, in his

wisdom and love allows in our lives? Have we ever

reflected our the ministry of suffering, be in God's school

of suffering and the purpose it serves in our lives.

If you look at Apostle Paul, he endured untold suffering

for the sake of the gospel. He faced imprisonment numerous times,

He was flogged numerous times. He was toned almost to dead,

He was in a shipwreck, and he was in constant danger.

He had enemies church leaders, religious leaders, judaisers, dogging his

every step, trying to destroy him and undo the gospel

that he was preaching. There was never a moment of

peace in his life. From his enemies, he also knew.

He also knew deprivation. He says, I have known hunger

and thirst, and have gone without food. I have been

called and naked. He experienced every hardship suffering that you

can think of. But how did Paul view his suffering?

He viewed his suffering, the hardships, and the challenges of life,

as a means by which God was educating him, preparing

him for eternal glory. That is why he writes in

Second Corinthians, chapter four, verse seventeen, for our light and

momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that

outweighs them all. Isn't that true? And in another place

he also states in Romans chapter five, we rejoice in

our sufferings, why, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance

produces character, and character produces hope. If you look at

the life of Jesus Christ, he faced hardships, difficulties, challenges,

trials just like us, and in the spirit of prophecy Elengi.

White writes, it was the spirit's leading that brought Jesus

into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. When God

brings us into trial, he has a purpose to accomplish

for our good. The truth is, God, as a loving father,

is more interested in my salvation than in my temporal

happiness and comfort. Therefore, in his love and wisdom, he

allows suffering. He allows trials to prepare me for eternity.

So today let us look at the purpose of God

allowing suffering, challenges, hardships, difficulties, trials in our lives and

the purpose they serve in our Christian journey. Have you

noticed oftentimes God uses painful circumstances and troubles to get

our attention. He uses painful circumstances and troubles to get

our attention. Why that may be the only way he

gets our attention, For we hear God the loudest in

our suffering. When life is smooth and everything is going well.

We really don't feel a need for God, and we

don't pay much attention to him. And for many of us,

it is only in our suffering that we recognize our

need for God and turn our attention to him. And

when we do that, what does He do to us?

He brings the greatest blessing, which is to bring us

to the knowledge, the saving knowledge of His son Jesus Christ.

You look at the life of nebukt Nezzer. God appealed

to him again and again through the godly life and

example of Daniel and his three friends. When Daniel told

his forgotten dream with its interpretation, what did King nebukat

Neser say? He said, Truly, God is the God of

gods and the Lord of kings, and a relief and

a revealer of secrets. When Daniel's three friends were unharmed

by the fiery furnace, what did nebuk Nasa said? He said,

blessed be the God of sdrag Michie and be Nigo.

There is no other God who can deliver like this.

But his testimony was just from the mouth and not

from the heart, because he refused to surrender his life

to God and turn from his wicked ways. It was

only when he was driven from the habitation of humans

and forced to live like animals that he turned his

face toward God and praised him and accepted him as

the lord of his life. How many times I am

like nabukt Nezar in order to hear his boy is.

God sometimes has to speak to me in pain, in suffering,

because it is only then I hear his voice. There's

a beautiful testimony that I came across a man of

a man the name by the name Dennis. He had

a lovely wife, he had two children, lovely children, a

wonderful job, a beautiful home. He was living his dream life.

But there was something missing in his life. God. He

had never given his life to God, and at the

age of forty six, he finally did and accepted Jesus

Christ as his personal savior. But shortly after that he

was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. But listen to

his powerful testimony his own words, he said, my time

on earth is short. I am not angry or bitter.

I am not even afraid, because I'm looking at my

illness from God's point of view, not mine. The way

I look at my situation, God has blessed me by

giving me this cancer. I feel God gave me a

wake up call. God. God gave me the time to

accept Jesus Christ. God even gave me the time to

get my family matters in order. The most important blessing

I could receive was my wife and my two sons,

who have now accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior.

And he concludes, so if having cancer and giving my

life saves them, this is a blessing. So do not

feel sorry for me, be happy. So many blessings have

come from this. God works in mysterious ways. A man

dying of cancer, What does the Psalmi say? The psalm

is in Psalm one hundred and nineteen seventy one says

it is good for me that I was afflicted, that

I may learn your statutes. What is the deepest longing

of every child of God? What is the deepest what

is the deepest desire? Deep down? What is our deepest desire?

The songwriter Sarah Adams has rightly expressed the deepest longing

of every child of God in her hymn Nearer My

God to Thee. She wrote, nearer my God to thee,

nearer to the Even though it be a cross that

raised me, that brings me to you, Still all my

songs shall be nearer my God, to the nearer, my God,

to the nearer to thee. I'm sure that is the

longing of each one of us to be drawn closer

and closer to Him. But how is that fulfilled? How

is that desire fulfilled? It is usually through trials and suffering.

Often it is in our darkest hours that God draws

us into a more intimate relationship with him, revealing himself

to us in a way we may never have experienced before.

If you look at the life of Job, he was

the richest man in the east. Not only was he

the richest man in the east, he was a god

fearing man, upright righteous, and he had ten lovely children.

But what happened? He went through trial after trial. Every

thing was taken away from him, including his ten children,

and his health was broken. His wife was spared to

come and tempt him, curse God and die. But after

having gone through such severe trials, what was his testimony?

He says, my years had heard of you, God, but

now my eyes have seen you. The trials of his

life opened his eyes wider. He was drawn closer to God.

He could understand God better than ever before. I want

to tell my experience to illustrate this point. Many years ago,

I went through a very severe trial, a trial so

severe I felt it was crushing the life out of me.

And I questioned God, and I said, God, you promised

that you would not allow any trial to come into

our lives. There is more than we can bear, but

this trial is too heavy for me to bear. Lord,

you are mistaken. I am not strong enough to bear

this trial. Please please take it away, remove it. I

cried to him day night, but he did not remove it.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months and

months into year, and my trial grew in intensity. During

the lowest and darkest moments, I begged God to take

my life, and I said to him living is too painful.

Death seems to be a better option for me, So

please have mercy on me, take my life away. My

tears became my food day and night, and the only

way I could survive it was like Lord helped me

to survive just one more day, just one more day.

Because I felt the weight of my trial just one

more day, Lord, just one more day, give me the strength.

And the only way I could survive was to cling

to him. The more intense the trial grew, the harder

I clung to him. I clung to him as I

had never done in my life, like a person clinging

to a life boat in the middle of the ocean

after experiencing a shipwreck. I cried to him day and night.

I spent hours reading his word to encourage myself to

gain strength. I wrestled with him in prayer and time

went on, and in the process of clinging to God

wrestling with him, something amazing happened. A beautiful, a more

intimate relationship developed between me and God, and God became

more personal, more real to me than ever before. And God,

in the midst of my trial, revealed himself to me

in a way he had never done before, and I

came to know him as I had never done before.

This intimate relationship was so fulfilling, so satisfying, that in

the midst of my trial, I could raise my hands

up in praise and thankfulness to God, thanking him for

the thorns in my life. And as I look back

after many years, as I look back to that painful experience.

Even though it was the most painful experience, it was

the most blessed experience for me. If not for that

painful experience, I won't be where I am today in

my walk with God. And I am for we were

thankful that in his love he loved me enough to

allow me to go through the valley of the Shadow

of death. And I will forever be thankful to Him

for that experience, the Bible says. The Bible tells us

that God uses trials for sanctification, and sanctification is not

a momentary event. It is the work of a lifetime.

In John chapter fifteen, verses one to three, what does

Jesus say? He says, I am the true vine, and

my father is the vine dresser. Every branch of mine

that bears fruth he takes away. And what does he say?

Every branch that bears fruit, what does he do? He pruits?

For what reason? That it may bear more fruit? The

vine dresser trims and prunes the branches that are producing fruit,

and pruning involves cutting off parts of the plant. It

may seem the vine dresser is destroying the plant, but

the cutting the pruning is necessary for the health of

the vine, for the health of the branches, for its productivity,

and for its health. And how does pruning take place.

The process of pruning is done with a sharp knife. Likewise,

God uses pain and suffering to remove impurities from our lives,

to refine our character, to make us more fruitful and

christ like in character. If we look at Galatians chapter five,

you have the fruit of the spirit. How is that

food produced here? It says, every branch that does bear fruit,

he prooves that it may bear more fruit. If you

are experiencing trials today, don't say God, don't you love me?

He loves you. That is why you are experiencing those trials.

Ellen Guite says, the obstacles, provocations, and hardships that we

meet may prove to us not a curse, but the

greatest blessing of our lives from the eyes through the

lens of God. Through the eyes of God, the curse.

The trials that we think are a curse are the

greatest blessings because they work to prepare us for eternity.

A story is told of a man who lived in

the nineteenth century by the name Martin Wells Knapp. He

faced a very difficult trial, and so in his private

prayers he asked God to take away, to take his

trial away. And while he was waiting on God to

remove the trial and take it away, he had a dream.

And in his dream he saw a block of marble.

And as he watched, the sculptor was chiseling and grinding

that block of marble. And as he did, a beautiful

image began to appear from that block of marble. And

as he was watching, God spoke to him and he said, son,

you are that block of marble. I have an image

in my mind, and I want to shape your character likewise,

but there is a condition. I will do so only

if you can handle the grinding. If you don't, I

will stop. Martin responded, Lord, please continue the chiseling and

the grinding. I need it. The very thing that I'm

asking God to remove is the very thing that is

molding and shaping me for eternity. Another purpose of trial

is to strengthen and grow our faith in God. In

Matthew chapter seventeen, we read the story of a man

who brought his who was demon posited, and he brought

them to Jesus' disciples, but they were unable to drive

out the demon from this boy. And later on they

ask Jesus, why can't we drive out the demon? And

this is what Jesus said, because you have little faith. Truly,

I tell you, if you have faith as small as

a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move

from here to there, and it will move. As children

of God, what do we desire? We desire to have

stronger faith, Faith that can move mountains, Faith, faith that

will not be shaken, faith that develops and grows. And

the only way to have strong faith is for our

faith to be tested and developed. And how does God

do that? Accomplish that in us by allowing us to

be tested, by allowing trials in our lives. George Miller,

the man who took care of thousands of orphans during

his lifetime, depending only on God for financial support. He

never asked anyone for donations. Whenever he needed, he would

ask God. There was a time when there was no

breakfast for the orphans. He gathered the orphans at the

dining table and they prayed for the breakfast that they

were about to have. And after they prayed, there was

a knock on the door, and who was there? A baker.

He felt impressed to give hundreds of loaves of bread

to the orphanage. And soon after who should come knocking

on the door, a milkman. And what did this man say?

George Muller, a man known for his faith. He says,

the only way to know strong faith is to endure

great trials. Your faith is not going to grow on

a bed of roses in a place of comfort and happiness. No,

it will grow during the time of testing and trials.

So he says, the only way to know strong faith

is to endure great trials. I have learned my faith

by standing firm through severe testing. Do you want to

have stronger faith? Are you going through trials? That is

an opportunity God has given you to have stronger faith.

You must trust when all else fails. If you look

at Hebrews chapter eleven, it is commonly referred to as

the whole of faith, not faith, and the author of

Hebrews has listed men and women who were great in faith,

who shored, who demonstrated remarkable faith. If you examine each

of their lives, you'd realize each had gone through trial

after trial, trial after trial. Joseph Daniel Abram, Each one

of them had gone through trial after trial. For example,

let's look at the life of Abram. At the age

of seventy five, Abram did not have a child, even

though God said, I'm going to make you into a

great nation. That itself is a trial. Not having children

at an old age. They had to wait twenty five

years for the promised son to be born, and that's

a severe trial. And in the midst of this trial,

they doubted God and they gave in, and they resorted

to human means, and Sarah's maid conceived a child for him.

But look at the maturity of Abraham's faith. In Genesis

twenty two, God told him to offer his son, his

only son, Isaac, as a burnt offering. And look at

how much his faith had matured. Hebrews chapter eleven says

by faith, Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as

a sacrifice, even though God had said to him, it

is true, Isaac, that the offspring will be reckoned. It

says Abraham reason look at how strong his trust was

in God. Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the

death During trials, our faith is both tested and strengthened,

and trials offer a unique opportunity for faith to grow

and mature. Second last, for today, in the hymn Come

Thy Found of every blessing, Robert Robinson confessed his tendency

to stray. He said, pron to wonder Lord, I feel

it prone to leave the Lord, the God I love.

We are all prone to wonder, to stray right, and

how does God bring us back? I may not leave

God completely, but we are all prone to prone to stray.

And how does God bring us back on the path

of righteousness? It is often true trials prodigals, How does

God bring them back? It is often through trials. You

look at the life of the prodigal son. When he

left his father's house, he had no intention of returning

back to his father, and as long as he had

money in his pocket, he had no thoughts about his father,

nor thoughts about going back to his father. But when

his money ran dry, he was homeless. He had no one.

He was hungry, so much so that even the pig's

food looked appetizing to him. It was only then he

came back to his senses. Scripture tells us when he

came to his senses, he said, how many of my

father's hired servants have food to spare, and here I

am starving to death. I will set out and go

back to my father. And lastly, God often uses trials

to prepare and equip us for service. It is in

the Crucibles that God prepares us for mission. God God

prepares us for service for ministry. Second Corinthians, Chapter one,

verse four says God comforts us in all our troubles,

so that we can comfort those in any trouble with

the comfort we ourselves received from God. One of my

favorite hymn writers is Fanny Crosby. It is believed that

she rode close to nine thousand hymns. If we were

to stag the hymnal, it would maybe rich above me.

That is how many hymns she composed in her life.

And when she was a few weeks old, she suffered

an eye infection, and unfortunately her family doctor had gone

out of town and she was treated by another doctor

who happened to be a quack doctor, and in treating her,

he blinded her for life. He never she never saw again,

and she was just few months old. To add to

this tragedy, few months after this happened, her father became

very ill, and died. And at the age of twenty one,

her mother, Mercy Crosbie, was widowed and she had to

leave home and work as a maid to provide for Fanny.

And in the absence of her mother, she was in

the care of her grandmother, grandmother Eunis Crosbie, and her

grandmother was a very god fearing woman. She taught her

as she grew. She taught her how to read the Bible.

She taught her how to pray, and she had a

very sharp memory. She taught she read to her from

the Bible, and Fanny memorize many books of the Bible.

It is believed she memorized the whole of Pentative, the

Four Gospels, and many other chapters and books of the Bible.

And God gave her the gift of composing hymns and

hymns and poetry, and many of her hymns. You know

all the way, my Savior leads me, blessed assurance. Jesus

is mine. He hided my soul. I'm dying, O, Lord,

pass me not, O gentle Savior, redeemed. How I love

to proclaim it. Save in the arms of Jesus. Tell

me the story of Jesus to God be the glory.

Great things he had done, all from a blind woman.

And these songs bless the people of her time. She

appeared before presidents, generals, and songs. She became one of

the most well known faces of her time. She did

not look at her blindness as a terrible thing. Even

at the early age of eight, she composed this little verse.

She said, Oh, what a happy child I am. Although

I cannot see. I am resolved that in this world, contented,

I will be. How many blessings I enjoy that other

people don't so weep or sigh because I'm blind. I

cannot nor I want. Blindness never produce self pity in Fanny. Instead,

she saw it as a gift, as a blessing from God.

In her adult years, someone said to her, Fanny, God

has blessed you with so many blessings, but he has

not blessed you with the gift of sight. And she

would say that her blindness was the greatest blessing that

could have ever happened to her. She said, how in

the world could I have lived such a helpful life,

such a useful life as I have lived, had I

not been blind. An another blind, famous blind person Helen Keller,

who became blind, death and mute at the age of

I should say death at the age of two. However,

she went on with the help of her teacher, Miss Sullivan.

She went on to become a famous author, educator, and advocator,

advocate for the blind and the death and this is

what she had to say. She says, I thank God

for my handicaps, for through them, I have found myself,

my work, and my God. God's blessings often don't come

in beautiful packaging. Instead, they often they frequently come in

unexpected and unappealing forms. I end with this song, a

song that I used to listen day and night because

it spoke so deeply to me. It's a song by

uh Laura Story entitled Blessings. She says in this song,

what if your blessings come through rain drops? She She

begins by saying, we pray for blessing. We pray for

pre peace, comfort, for family protection while we sleep, we

pray for healing, for prosperity. We pray for your mighty

hand to ease our suffering. But she says, what if

your blessing come through rain drops? What if your healing

comes through tears? What if a thousand sleepless nights or

what it takes to know You're near. And if my

greatest disappointments or the achking of this life is the

revealing of the greater thirst this world can't satisfy. What

if the trials of this life, the rain, the storms,

the hardest nights are your mercies in disguise for our

light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal

glory that far our outweighs them all. Lord teaches the

value of our thorns of other God. You are a

loving God, and you want every one of us to

be saved in your eternal kingdom. And the world in

which we live in is a place where you train

us for heaven. And in training us, you allow us

to go through trials so that we may be prepared

to spend eternity with you. So, Lord, when trials come,

it is my prayer that our focus will be on you,

and that it will be our prayer. Lord teaches the

value of our thorns. This is our prayer to you

in Jesus' name. Amen,