Claiming Dependence | The Paradox of Power

What are you bragging about right now?

Jesus, great answer.

That's a we're done.

Okay, let's go on.

Now, like what what you brag about can tell a lot about you.

Now, for most people, when they hear brag or boast, most people kind of cringe when they hear that, because for most people, to brag or to boast is a little bit, you know, that's poor form.

And then for some people, they seem to have no problem bragging whatsoever.

But bragging in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing.

It just depends on what your target is.

You know, people that brag about other people are awesome.

Man, there's a sense of security to them.

There's there's humility, they're peaceful, they've got joy to them.

There's a calmness that goes with that.

And and you love being around people like that.

People that brag about other people, that spread positive gossip.

Man, we love being around people like that.

But what makes us cringe is when somebody brags about themselves.

Let me tell you how awesome I am.

And then they just proceed to tell you all the great things that they're doing, the cool new stuff that they bought, all the trips that they get to go on for the next six months completely unsolicited.

They give you their professional and materialistic and social resume unsolicited, and they never ask you a question about you.

Maybe they drop names like it's going out of style.

Well, here's who I know, here's who I'm running with right now, here's who I'm talking to, here's who I get to work with.

They just drop names in the middle of the conversation, and it doesn't make any sense because it's not relevant to the conversation whatsoever.

They just wanted you to hear how they are associated with this person and this way, and then they might try to slip in the classic humble brag.

You know what this is, don't you?

It's secretly praising yourself behind fake modesty.

Let me give you an example.

Man, I really wish people would stop asking me to speak at international conferences because I'm just getting tired of packing my bags, you know.

Cool, bud.

Oh yeah.

It's a humble brag.

Like whenever we experience that kind of bragging, we cringe because we know that it's self-promotion.

We just want to walk away from it.

It's self-promotion, that's what it is.

It's a cry for attention.

Look at me.

And usually the loudest and most frequent self-promoters are usually the most insecure people in the room.

And I know that because I've done this.

Man, I have given my resume unsolicited, I have named, dropped, and I've definitely humble bragged before.

And whenever I've gotten into that type of bragging, it's always been driven by an insecurity that I'm wrestling with andor a need for affirmation.

But somewhere along the line, I became dependent on myself for those things.

I became the source, which means bragging just becomes a tactic to get things like attention and affirmation.

But the truth is, bragging is just a mask for weakness.

That's all it is.

Unsolicited resumes or name-dropping or humble brags.

It's just an attempt to mask weakness.

But what about this instead?

What if you actually bragged about your weakness instead of trying to hide it?

The Apostle Paul, he writes a letter to the Christians that were in Corinth.

Corinth is a Greek city.

You can still go there this day.

He writes this letter to them and he's trying to help them discern between false teachers and ones that are not.

He's trying to help them discern between false gospels and the real gospel.

But while he's doing that, there's a bunch of people that are just trashing him.

They're going around saying, hey, this Paul guy, not worth listening to.

He's not worth it.

Don't waste your time.

By the way, he doesn't have any credentials or the resume that we have.

They start bragging about themselves.

Paul says, Okay, alright, cool.

We we can do that if you want.

Like, here are my credentials if you want them, but man, what I'd rather do, man, if I'm gonna brag, if I must boast, then I would much rather boast about the things that show how weak I am.

It's a different tactic.

I don't know that I would go down that route.

Paul actually just comes off an experience that's kind of mind-blowing.

We're not gonna get into what it was today, but let's just say this.

If I experience what Paul did, you know what we'd be talking about all today?

What I got to experience and how awesome it was.

But Paul doesn't do that.

He actually doubles down.

Here's what he says in 2 Corinthians he says, that experience is worth boasting about.

Trust me, it is, but I'm not gonna do it.

I will boast only about my weaknesses.

If I wanted to boast, I'd be no fool in doing so because I'd be telling you the truth.

But I'm not gonna do it because I don't want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message.

Why would he brag about his weaknesses?

I mean, I thought I thought we're supposed to name drop.

I thought we're supposed to talk about how awesome we are.

Man, I thought we were supposed to tell people the cool stuff we bought and where we get to go because that's how you differentiate yourself in 2026, right?

I mean, why would he do this?

The idea that if you just hide your weaknesses, if you do that, that's a sign of strength.

Or that if you're really confident talking about where you're in, winning and ignoring where you're struggling, that that that shows strength, the idea of that is a complete misconception.

The truth is, if you boast about your weaknesses, that means you're actually free from them.

If you boast about your weaknesses, your weaknesses now become the floor in your life.

But if you're bragging about yourself, every weakness you have is now your ceiling.

If you are the source of your own strength, then any weakness you have or show is an indictment on you.

It's a liability.

Or let me say it this way: your weaknesses are a liability if you are dependent on you.

We all have weaknesses.

We all do.

We've all gone through storms, we all deal with struggle in some way.

That's just life.

The question is can you look at weaknesses or storms or struggles, whatever it is, can you look at those things through an opportunistic lens?

You know, right before Paul starts bragging about his weakness, he talks about some crazy stuff that he's that he's already experienced.

Here's what he says: five different times Jewish leaders gave me 39 lashes.

Means they took off his shirt and they whipped him 39 times.

Three times that I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, he leaves out that they thought he was dead and they left him for dead, but he didn't die.

Three times I was shipwrecked, and once I was a whole night and day adrift at sea.

Now he doesn't even even mention that after one of those times when he was shipwrecked, when he finally washed up on shore, relieved that he didn't drown, he sits down next to a fire to get warm and dry himself off, and he gets bit by a poisonous snake.

Like, the dude's got some bad luck.

Like, really, come on.

Maybe you're thinking that too.

Like, Matt, come on.

Like, I thought that's what I'm talking about.

I thought that if I depend on Jesus, then things are supposed to go well for me.

I thought that's what I signed up for.

That's a thought that so many different people have.

That's also a false perception about Christianity.

It's a it's just trying to sell you a comfortable life.

If you think that because you're dependent on Jesus, everything is going to go well for you.

Let me ask you this.

Where'd you hear that?

You're not gonna find that in scripture.

That certainly wasn't true for Jesus.

So why would that be true for us?

Instead, you and I are promised, we're not promised a smooth and comfortable life.

We're promised the opposite.

You and I are gonna have weaknesses, for sure.

You and I are going to experience different storms and struggles.

That's just life, it's not fun, not at all.

But what we miss is there is a hidden gift in this inside that.

Whether it's a weakness or a storm or struggle.

The hidden gift is actually two-folded opportunity.

Here's the first.

We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble that we went through in the province invasion.

We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought that we would never live through it.

In fact, we expected to die, thought we're gonna die, but as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and we learn to rely only on God.

That's the first opportunity.

When you feel overwhelmed or crushed or burdened, first and foremost, that is an opportunity for you to learn how to rely on the Lord and not yourself.

The incarnated Jesus was the most dependent person in human history.

He was completely dependent on the Father.

Jesus gave you and I the model to follow.

Dependency on God is basic Christianity.

Only good things come from depending on God.

May not be the good circumstances that you had in mind, but a deepening dependence on the Lord is going to result in good things.

What can happen is God can take a storm, bad situation, tough circumstance.

You feel like you're crushed or overwhelmed or burdened.

God can take those things and give them to you as an opportunity for you to learn to depend on Him and not yourself.

It's a gift, it's not a fun gift, but it's a gift.

Or if you do feel overwhelmed and burdened and crushed, it can also be a check engine light.

Do I feel so burdened and overwhelmed because I'm actually relying on myself or someone or something else instead of the Lord?

Like is this actually an opportunity for me to shift my dependence from me to Jesus?

And this isn't blind trust either, not at all.

We stop relying on ourselves and learn to rely on God who raises the dead.

And he did rescue us from mortal danger, and he will rescue us again.

Like we have placed our confidence in him and he will continue to rescue us.

Dependence on God is based on what God has already done.

This is why remembering is so important.

We talked about this last week.

Remembering and dependence, they're interconnected.

Like when you remember what God has done in the past, then you can depend on him in the present.

But this kind of weakness, or depending on based on what happened in the past, it's only the first opportunity.

Here's the second part that can actually deepen you.

So to keep me from being conceited, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.

But he, meaning God, he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you.

For my power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

For the sake of Christ, I am content now with weaknesses and insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.

For when I am weak, then I'm strong.

Have you ever had a thorn in your side?

The answer is yes.

You can talk back to me.

Yes, you have.

All of us have, right?

In fact, we could pull the room right now, and every single one of us could tell about a thorn that we had in the side in the past, maybe one that we've got right now.

And I'm willing to bet that everybody in here could find at least one more person who could relate with the thorn that you're dealing with.

We've all experienced this.

We've had a thorn in our side.

Now, Paul doesn't specify what his was.

Now, some people think that it was an illness, a chronic illness.

Galatians kind of gives evidence to that, but we're still not sure.

Some people thought that it was persecution.

Paul did have people that were following him around and trying to kill him.

Seems like a thorn to me.

A nice way of saying it.

Some people think it was intense spiritual, spiritual warfare.

He doesn't specify what it was, but here's what we do know: it wasn't good.

Maybe you're dealing with something right now.

You got a thorn in the side right now.

It's annoying at best.

Painful, yes, maybe utterly discouraging at worst.

I don't know what it is.

And I don't want to downplay what you think you have dealt with or maybe what you're dealing with right now.

But what if being harassed by a thorn is actually a good thing?

I'm gonna be careful saying that because I don't know your situation.

I don't.

But I just want you to think about this.

What if when God says no?

Or he doesn't give you the answer quite like you were expecting or hoping?

What if that is actually the best thing that could happen to you?

Here's what I mean.

A thorn is the worst thing for your comfort, but it can be the best thing for your character.

Paul says, dude, I prayed three different times.

God, would you just take this away?

And God says, No, I'm not gonna take it away.

In fact, I'm instead of giving you relief from it, I'm gonna give you something even better.

He says, I know, Paul, you have a thorn.

Right now, with whatever you're dealing with, God's saying, I know you've got this, but here's what I'm gonna do.

The thorn that you have, I'm gonna give you greater grace to go with it.

And my grace is all that you need.

So think about this.

If if you remove the thorn, then do you remove that extra grace?

Rosebushes have thorns, right?

They have thorns, number one, to protect them from animals.

Animals would just tear apart rose bushes because of how sweet smelling they are if they didn't have thorns.

On top of that, some rose bushes that that grow by climbing, the thorns can act as anchors and support systems to grab onto a wall or a fence.

Now, if you got rid of the thorns and a rose bush, it wouldn't last.

It couldn't grow, and animals would just tear it apart.

That's obvious.

Well, get this.

Guys, if you brought roses home for your girl today, which heads up, maybe you should do that.

Just a random gesture.

If you bring home roses for your girl today, roses that have thorns on them will scientifically last longer in a vase than roses that have had the thorns removed.

Is that why God said no to Paul?

No, I'm not gonna take the thorn away because the thorns mean you're gonna experience extra grace, and the extra grace means you're gonna last longer.

So maybe the thorn you're dealing with right now is just to help you last and persevere longer.

Thorns also will let you know what your limitations are pretty quickly.

You stick your hand into a thorn bush, you know real quick where your hand needs to stop.

Not touching that shows you that limitation.

And when you know your limitations, man, the choice to depend on the Lord, that becomes the obvious choice.

The thorn that Paul experienced deepened his dependency on Jesus.

Thorns will also shape your character, too.

Thorns will kill pride, they will root it out.

I mean, we would all say no to pride and yes to peace.

Pretty obvious, right?

Everybody says, yeah, pride, bad thing.

No to pride, yes, we want peace, but nobody wants the pain that makes those two things a reality.

Thorns, when you get pricked by them, they hurt, but they shape you.

The more you acknowledge your own limitations and your weaknesses, the more you acknowledge that thorn, the more humility will start to increase in you.

Now you go from a spot of being shaped from a character of pride, now you're being shaped into the character of humility.

And when this happens, that's when you can start not only bragging about your weaknesses, but celebrating them.

That's what Paul was doing.

And also, thorns will give you an ability to sympathize with people in pretty incredible ways.

But we'll come back to that in a little bit.

A thorn is the worst thing for your comfort, but it is the best thing for your character.

God cares far more about shaping your character than he does about giving you a comfortable life.

So, whatever weakness you got right now, whatever thorn in the side you might have right now, like I know it's not fun.

I don't want to downplay it at all because I don't know your situation.

But I do want to ask you this look past it, look a little deeper.

I don't want you to miss an opportunity that God has actually given you for you to create deeper dependence on Jesus, for your character to be shaped, for you to have the ability to sympathize with other people in pretty powerful ways.

A thorn's an opportunity, it can be a gift to you.

I experienced a new thorn on the side this week.

This past week I got caught up in a bait and switch scam.

So I was trying to ship a car, an old car from my parents' house out here, and the company we decided to use for shipping, at the very last minute, they completely changed the price that we agreed on.

The day before they were supposed to pick up the car, they called me and told me, yeah, the price we agreed on, it just went up by four times.

And I said, That's not how this works.

Um, we have an agreement for this amount.

I'm not gonna pay a dollar more than this, and if you can't do this, I want my money back.

They said, It's gonna be four times more, sir.

I said, No, it's not.

I'm not gonna pay that.

Well, then they started threatening me.

For two days, I got almost 60 text messages, and I don't know how many phone calls threatening me, saying, We are coming tomorrow to get that car or get that money, and we know how to get the money if we want to.

They did very much were insinuating physical threats.

Like I thought about blocking all the text, like the numbers, but I mean, I thought I need this for evidence.

Like, I have so many different screenshots right now on my phone.

The day before they start saying, Okay, hey, we're gonna be there at three o'clock, and I said, We canceled the agreement.

You broke the contract.

A family friend of ours is a lawyer, they looked over the contract, they said, Yeah, Matt, you're not liable.

They can't come after you legally.

They broke the contract.

But the day before, they start texting me.

And then the day of, they said, Hey, we'll be there at three o'clock today at my parents' house.

Hey, we're two hours out, hey, we're 30 minutes out, hey, we're 10 minutes out, you better have my money.

Hey, we're almost there, you better have all that money.

I'm not leaving without that car or that money.

Over and over and over again.

Like we had to get the police involved.

I filed a complaint with the BBB and with the state attorney general's office.

Man, we knew it was a scam for sure.

But when you're being threatened, they were very much insinuating physical threats.

When you're feeling threatened over and over again, I was like, man, this feels like spiritual, a huge spiritual attack and harassment.

So I let our elders know what was going on.

I told them, guys, here's what's going on.

Can can you can you pray for me right now?

And they're like, Matt, they start texting me back.

Matt, we're praying right now, we're praying.

This is just this is a spiritual attack, and it's harassment.

Well, the time came and went when they said that they were gonna show up at my parents' house, and of course they didn't show up.

And then the text messages stopped right after that.

We even got our deposit back.

The the credit card company, our credit card company filed an investigation, and as soon as that happened, they released our deposit back.

I haven't heard from them since, but man, it was um it was not fun.

And then it dawned on me.

Oh, yeah, this Sunday I'm preaching on Paul being harassed by a messenger of Satan with a thorn in the flesh.

Cool.

So here's what I learned.

I learned to run to him in prayer.

For about 72 hours, I was praying over and over and over again.

God, would you please protect me?

Would you protect my parents?

They're threatening to show up at my parents' house.

My parents live about 1100 miles away.

Now, my dad can protect himself and my mom, but my dad is the type of man that probably relishes this opportunity a little too much.

Like, that's him, that's my father, if you know what I'm talking about.

My brother is ex-military, he's calling my dad saying, I'm on my way over, I'm coming.

I'm like, alright.

I'll pump the brakes.

But protect my parents.

God, would you remove this spiritual attack?

I know it's a scam, but really, this is spiritual at nature.

Would you just remove this?

So, man, my dependency on the Lord this week, good grief.

My prayer life increased big time, and that's only a good thing.

Also, it says that Paul was given this thorn in the flesh to keep him from being conceited.

So I had to ask the same question to God this week.

God, am I am I being conceited in some way?

Is there is there pride in me that I don't know about?

It's taking root that needs to be ripped out.

Is it Is this just preventative medicine so that I don't become conceited?

And what I think I think the Lord was teaching me this week was one, he was trying to stiffen my spine.

But two, he revealed some hard edges that I have in life that I didn't know that I had.

Very gently and graciously, there were three things that I felt like God said, Hey Matt, you're a little harder on the edges right here.

You need to soften up.

Okay.

Thank you.

The other thing I learned was that God likes to let me experience something before I preach about it.

Thanks.

So uh starting next week, I'm just gonna preach John 3.16 over and over again.

Like, I'm gonna experience that.

If we're gonna do that, like I don't want to experience the hard stuff, so I'm not gonna preach the hard stuff anymore.

I'm kidding.

Like, for those of you who know me, this actually strengthened my resolve to preach hard things because these verses came alive to me this week.

And in the big scheme of things, what I experienced this week was so small and insignificant, but it was actually a gift that God gave me.

It was a gift that was wrapped in the shape of a thorn.

So here's something to remember.

Sometimes God will let you go through storms just so you know what they feel like.

If you are a follower of Jesus, then you are called into ministry.

Ministry simply means to serve.

That's all it means.

You've been called to serve.

Jesus says the Son of Man did not come to be served, but he came to what?

He came to serve.

If you're a follower of Christ, you are called to serve.

And sometimes God's gonna let you feel what a storm feels like just so you can serve the people he's called you to serve better.

Like Paul reinforces this.

Here's what he says.

I lost my place.

Good grief.

Where I can't even read my writing.

That's not it.

Right there.

Here we go.

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.

He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others.

When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.

So sometimes God's gonna let you go through a storm so that you can comfort other people that are going through the same thing.

Could be a weakness, could be some kind of storm where you were betrayed, or maybe you were cheated, maybe you were persecuted or discriminated against, maybe there's some kind of hardship.

Like there's something that you've been through, some kind of storm, something's popping into your mind right now, and it was painful, whatever that was.

Well, not only will God comfort those wounds, but he will heal them and then he will eventually turn them into scars.

I mean, if I have an open wound and I press on an open wound, that hurts, right?

But I could press on a scar, it doesn't hurt.

The cool thing about a scar is it doesn't hurt, but I can remember exactly how I got that scar.

Now I can take what I've learned from that scar and the comfort I got from the Lord and give it to somebody else who's going through almost the exact same thing.

Man, God wants you to be his vessel to share his comfort with other people.

Sometimes God will let you experience storms and thorns so that your dependency on Jesus deepens.

Remember, Jesus, the incarnated Jesus, was the most dependent person in human history.

Dependence on the Father was the starting point for everything, for everything that Jesus said and he did.

It was his source of power, and Jesus had to deal with all kinds of storms and thorns, figuratively and literally.

Jesus dealt with attacks, threats, false accusations, character assassination attempts, mockery.

He faced literal life-threatening storms on the Sea of Galilee, and he had a literal crown of thorns shoved down on his head.

All of that deepened his dependence on the Father.

And sometimes, sometimes God will let you go through a storm so that the power of Christ is all over you.

Paul said this.

Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

For the sake of Christ, I'm content with weaknesses and insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities, content with storms and thorns.

For when I am weak, that's when I'm strong.

This is the paradox of power.

When you're weak, that's when you can be strong.

This is how strength works in the kingdom of heaven.

God's power becomes its full strength and scope in human weakness, and your weakness and mine.

And weakness comes before power.

Jesus gave the greatest example of this in history.

It's the crucifixion.

The crucifixion was the greatest act of weakness that has ever been experienced.

Stripped naked, beaten within an inch of his life, and then nailed to a tree.

A person was never more weak than a man who was being crucified.

But the cross being utter weakness had to come before God's greatest display of his power in history.

That's the resurrection.

Three days later, Jesus laughs at death, he takes off his own burial clothes and he walks out of his grave.

How?

All through the power of God.

Weakness comes before power.

And the same thing is true with you.

Your weakness is a platform for God's power.

If you let him.

And I know weakness isn't fun.

It's not.

Man, I actually I hate the feeling of weakness.

It feels like I'm out of control.

It feels like I'm not being the man God's asked me to be.

I hate the feeling of weakness.

And that's still pride and insecurity I gotta wrestle with.

Weakness is no fun.

Nobody likes it.

Nobody likes storms and thorns.

Nobody likes pain or struggle.

Nobody likes limitations or inadequacies.

None of us like that kind of stuff.

But that's the platform for God's power to be on you and in you if you let Him.

So let me get practical real for a minute.

The way for you to experience God's power resting on you, like Paul's talking about, the way for you to experience that is to acknowledge your own weakness and limitations, acknowledge that thorn, and then follow Jesus in faith and obedience.

That's when God's power rests upon you.

The greater the admission of weakness, the more evident that Jesus' strength is on you and in you.

But if you don't think that you're weak, if you try to hide it, you lie about it to yourself, then why would God have his power rest on you?

Well, clearly, you don't need my power.

Like you seem to be good on your own.

You are your own source of strength.

Okay, I'll leave you alone.

You're dependent on you.

You're bragging about yourself.

Instead, how about you say this?

I can't do this without you, Lord.

It's one of the most powerful prayers you could ever say.

I can't do this without you, Lord.

Or how about this?

I need you, Jesus.

Those are maybe the four most powerful words you could ever say.

I'm dependent on you.

If you're following Jesus already, you've been following for years.

I mean, this is not a one-time admission.

We do this daily.

I need you, Jesus.

I can't do this without you, Lord.

And if you don't know Christ, this is step one, acknowledging I need you, Jesus.

And I want to follow you in faith and obedience.

Maybe that's exactly your next step.

Right now, you just need to pray.

I need you, Jesus.

Lord, I can't do this without you.

And then after that, thank him for the thorns.

Nobody likes hardship, nobody likes storms, nobody likes thorns.

They're annoying at best.

Poking you, pricking you?

Nobody likes that.

But they are an opportunity for your dependence to go deeper.

They are an opportunity for your character to be shaped into the image of Jesus.

They are an opportunity for you to experience God's power on you.

They are an opportunity for you to be able to serve other people well.

So what if God is asking you this question?

You're gonna push back at this?

This is like it's almost offensive when you first hear it.

But just chew on it.

What if God is asking you right now, hey, can you thank me for entrusting you with this thorn?

Whatever it is.

And this isn't devoid of things that are unjust that have happened.

I'm not that's a whole nother conversation.

That doesn't light diminish any of that.

But what if God's asking right now, can you thank me for entrusting you with this thorn?

Because maybe he can't trust it to anybody else.

Can you thank me for an opportunity for you to grow deeper, for you to depend on me, for you to experience my power, for your character to be shaped, and for you to serve other people better.

God does not need your perceived strengths or gifts or talents.

He gave you those anyway.

He didn't need them back from you.

What he wants is your weakness.

What he wants is your failures and your limitations and your pain and your inadequacies and your fear.

That's what he wants.

And then he wants you to brag about those things so that the power of Christ can be on you.

Man, this whole series is about how do we deepen our dependency on Jesus so that we all individually grow spiritually.

And last week I threw out a challenge for you.

It was fast, which is uh my least favorite spiritual discipline, but it's the one that's pushed me the most.

Fasting biblically is giving up food for a period of time.

Maybe it's a day.

Jesus gave up fasted for 40 days straight.

I would recommend building your way up to that before just jumping right in.

But it's giving up food for a day.

He's quotes he quotes Deuteronomy 8 when he's fasting.

Jesus says, Hey, man, it's not live on bread alone, but the very word of God.

Food is something that you need to survive, right?

When you fast, you're saying, God, I even need you and your word more than I need food.

So maybe it's fasting from food.

Tommy said that he couldn't do it.

It's just because Tommy's love language is food.

Okay, that's if you want to show Tommy any kind of appreciation, he'll eat anything.

Just give him some food.

And man, he just that's it's awesome.

He's very easily pleased.

But maybe it's not fasting from food.

Maybe it's fasting from something like social media.

And if you got rid of social media off your phone for the rest of the series, you're welcome.

You're welcome.

And how that's gonna feel when you're done?

Or something else that you're relying on more than you're relying on, Jesus.

I want to encourage you to fast every single week during this series.

Today, let me throw out something else.

Thank him for the thorns.

Here's the challenge.

Today and every day this week up until next Sunday, write down.

Don't just say them or think about them.

Write them down.

Every thorn that you have right now or ones that you can remember that you've experienced.

Write them down.

Ask God, hey, what was your grace in these so I don't miss it?

I believe you when you say my grace is sufficient for you, but I don't want to miss it, God.

What was your grace?

What are you trying to shape in?

How are you trying to mold me in this?

And would you let your power rest on me?

The science behind gratitude is incredible.

Like gratitude, it will is literally life-changing.

It can change the wiring of your brain.

So we want to practice gratitude for the things that we've been given.

Well, how about we practice gratitude by thanking God for thorns?

It's a little counterintuitive, but man, that would be positive.

Just want to challenge you to do that.

Write them down this week.

Here's a thorn.

Thank you for that, God.

Now let me learn from it.

What are you teaching me?

The whole point is for our dependency on Christ to get deeper and deeper and deeper, which means more individual spiritual growth.

So let's keep going.

Next week we're gonna dive into it even deeper.

Let's pray.

Jesus, um, thank you for storms and thorns.

I don't like it because I like comfort.

But I trust you, and I know that you love me and you want what's best for me, and you want me to grow, and you care more about my character than you do my comfort.

I believe you and I trust you.

Would you let that be true of all of us?

That we could just trust you, that whatever thorn we might be dealing with right now, that we could thank you for, that we could experience greater grace, that we would depend on you, that your power would rest on us, and that we would be able to serve other people well because of it.

I don't know what people are dealing with in the room.

You do.

I'm completely ignorant to that.

But you would would you comfort those who need to be comforted and let them pass that comfort on?

Thank you for going through all kinds of storms for us.

Thank you for experiencing the crown of thorns so that we could one day have a crown that you've given to us that one we will lay back down at your feet.

We look forward to that day.

We love you, Jesus.

It's in your precious name we pray.

Amen.