The Purpose of Your Pain
Your Purpose
Group Questions
What do you want to remember about this past week?
What is something you remember from your childhood?
What is the worst sickness you have had?
Text Questions
What should we do with our painful experiences?
Read 2 Corinthians 11:23–27
What stuck out to you?
What do we learn about Paul?
Why did God let all of this happen to Paul?
Read 2 Corinthians 12:6–10
What stuck out to you?
Why was Paul given this issue?
What did Paul plead with God about?
What is God’s response to Paul?
How does Paul change with God’s response?
What does it mean that when I am weak, then I am strong?
Personal Questions
What are some of the challenges in your life?
How are you dealing with challenges?
What could God do with your challenges?
Application
Take inventory
Ask God for wisdom
Trust God with your pain
Ask God to use you
Verses
2 Corinthians 11:23–27
23 Are they servants of Christ? I’m talking like a madman—I’m a better one: with far more labors, many more imprisonments, far worse beatings, many times near death. 24 Five times I received the forty lashes minus one from the Jews. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked. I have spent a night and a day in the open sea. 26 On frequent journeys, I faced dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, and dangers among false brothers; 27 toil and hardship, many sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, often without food, cold, and without clothing.
2 Corinthians 12:6–10
6 For if I want to boast, I wouldn’t be a fool, because I would be telling the truth. But I will spare you, so that no one can credit me with something beyond what he sees in me or hears from me, 7 especially because of the extraordinary revelations. Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. 8 Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. 10 So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
