Though we cannot always control the circumstances of life, we are never without choices in how we will respond. A true Christian need not wring his or her hands in despair. With God on our side we can face adversity with confidence.

Have you made any New Year’s Resolutions?

I suppose that question brings a mixed response no matter where it is asked. Some people are quick to give you the list of the plans they have for the New Year. Others make it very clear that they never make such resolutions because they don’t want to set themselves up for failure.

Whether we make resolutions or not, perhaps most of us feel some sort of "turning over a new leaf" attitude this time of year. A new year does seem to afford the opportunity to leave past failings behind and start again. It’s in that spirit that I address my topic today.

Have you ever had one of those situations where, if anything could go wrong, it did? All of us, at one time or another in our lives, find ourselves in situations where nothing seems to be going right. Some of us may be facing such challenges right now. If not, we probably know not to get too comfortable. We’ll get our turn soon enough. It might relate to our job, our marriage, our finances, our health, our kids, our parents, our friends, or a number of other issues.

Some problems we face can and should be managed by making a plan of action and getting busy working the plan. For instance, if spending is out of control, what you need is a budget and the disciple to keep it. If the problem is a bad habit of lying, there must be repentance and some accountability for the things that are said. If it’s a health issue, you may need to make an eating plan or start an exercise program. These kinds of problems – the ones we can do something about – require only good planning and diligence in executing the plans. Get busy and you’ll probably overcome them.

Some problems, though, we are powerless affect. They are beyond our control. Either the circumstance or some other person is calling all the shots. We seem to be helpless to affect them. We just have to ride out the storm until it is over – or, in some cases, perhaps continue in the storm with no apparent relief on the horizon.

Though we cannot always control the circumstances of life, we are never without choices in how we will respond. A true Christian need not wring his or her hands in despair. With God on our side we can face adversity with confidence.

Pie in the sky, you say? Don’t be too quick to write me off. There are Christians who have faced adversity with courage and confidence. I’d like to show you one of them in this message.

Our Bible text this morning is Philippians 1:12-26. The book of Philippians is one of Paul’s prison epistles, written from a jail in Rome. Imagine in your mind’s eye, the great apostle sitting in a cell at a small box or table, a beam of light shining in through a tiny window, falling upon a parchment where he is laboring to write. He is falsely accused. He doesn’t know when he will be released or what will happen to him. Our eyes fall upon his letter as he writes these words:

Before we finish reading what Paul wrote, you need to know that, hidden behind those two little words "my circumstances" is the series of events that led up to Paul’s imprisonment. By reckoning in any age, I think we would have to say those circumstances certainly qualified as a "difficult situation." In Jerusalem, he was falsely accused by the Jews and in danger of being murdered. Taken into protective custody, he was moved to Caesarea and imprisoned for two years. From there, because he appealed his case to Caesar, he was sent to Rome. On the way the ship on which he was being transported sank in a storm. Though all on board survived, the ship was a total loss. They washed ashore on an island where he was bitten by a poisonous snake. Now, finally, he is in Rome, under "house arrest." He uses the opportunity to write some letters. The one he is writing is intended for the Christians in the city of Philippi. We continue…

Conspicuously absent from Paul’s letter is any "poor me" or "woe is me" talk. Other than the mention of his imprisonment, you would never guess the troubles behind these words. How can that be? How can a Christian remain positive in such a difficult situation?

I want to use this passage to suggest three resolutions we can make as we get into the coming year for those times when we are faced with difficult circumstances over which we have no control. Each one is something that Paul did, as revealed by the words of this letter. I have phrased them in the form of resolutions so that they fit our occasion. The first is:

Good in a bad situation? Good in imprisonment? Good in false accusations? Good in threats on your life? Good in shipwreck? Good in snake bite? That’s right.

Had Paul dealt with his situation like many do today, these verses would have been a sad chorus of "woe is me," aimed at anyone who would lend a sympathetic ear. Instead, remarkably, we find him listing all the good things that happened as a result of his imprisonment. In verse 12 he says it helped him spread the gospel. In verse 13 he says the brethren had become more confident in speaking the word, in verse 15-18 he says that in spite of those with poor motives, Christ was being proclaimed.

Now take a look at the problems you and I face - those over which we have little or no control. Early on in the troubles, we should ask "What are the possible benefits of this situation?" The good in the circumstances may not be immediately evident, but it can be found if we steadfastly watch for it with eternity in mind.

I realize that this principle has been trivialized and hackneyed to the point where we sometimes just roll our eyes and say, "Oh brother, not the ‘silver lining in every cloud’ routine!" But it is true that there can be good things that result from bad situations. Since we usually have little choice at such times other than to endure them, it makes good sense to begin early looking for the benefits rather than becoming discouraged and depressed by what seems to be going against us.

If Paul could find good in violence against his person, false accusation, shipwreck, and imprisonment, I’m sure we can find something to praise God about in the troubles we face.

While Corrie Ten Boom was living as a captive in a German concentration camp, her entire body became infested with lice, making a bad situation even worse. She was complaining about it one day, and her sister, Betsy, also a prisoner, reminded her of the Bible verse that says "In everything give thanks." She challenged Corrie to give thanks for the lice. Corrie, not one for pious platitudes, responded, "How can I give thanks to God for lice?" But she made a choice to do it anyway because she didn’t want to hurt her suffering sister. Later, she found out that the lice had actually protected then both from the sexual assaults from the German guards.

Every problem has its benefits. We need to learn to look for them. Our natural tendency is just the opposite. We see only the "bad" parts of the problem - and the longer we look at that, the bigger it gets, until our perception becomes completely distorted. At that point, it is really easy to lose sight of our priorities and do something that doesn’t benefit us or anyone else. The devil gets the victory.

Many years ago, when Charlie Grimm was managing the Chicago Cubs, they were experiencing an extended batting slump that had caused them to sink into last place in their division. Of course, the newspapers were giving Grimm a hard time about it, asking "Why can't you get some decent hitters?" One evening a Chicago scout phoned from a small town in Nebraska and said, "Coach, I've just stumbled onto a great pitching find. This afternoon the kid pitched a perfect game. Twenty-seven strikeouts in a row! Nobody even touched the ball till a guy hit a foul in the last inning. Coach, I've got the kid here with me right now. Shall I sign him up?" "No" Grimm said. "We don't pitchers. We need hitters. Sign the guy who got the foul."

Humor was intended in that, I’m sure, but priorities and judgment do become distorted when we see only the problem we are facing and not the possible benefits.

One benefit of nearly every problem is that it gives us an opportunity to evaluate our priorities. Is our relationship with Jesus Christ more important than anything else in the world? We’ll never know for sure until the pressure is put upon us to abandon it.

I was reading in Exodus awhile back and I came across a passage that described Israel’s conquest of Canaan. Apparently there were some of the nations in Canaan that God did not allow the Israelites to conquer. No matter what they did, they couldn’t drive them out. It was a bad situation because it never allowed them to rest or completely lay down their arms. In Judges 3:1, we read why: "Now these are the nations which the Lord left, to test Israel by them…" Then, after listing the nations that were spared, Joshua says in verse 4, "And they were for testing Israel, to find out if they would obey the commandments of the Lord, which He had commanded their fathers through Moses."

Does this give us any clues as to why God doesn’t always intervene to take away some of our struggles?

As Vance Havner once put it, "God sometimes snuffs out our brightest candle so that we may look up to His eternal stars."

Consider the benefits. Resolved: To look for the good. Here’s another resolution:

If your problem seems impossible, then you need to change your perspective. There are a few things that even the worst problems cannot do. They cannot separate you from God’s love. They cannot separate you from God’s family. They cannot separate you from God’s protection. They cannot deny you your eternal reward. They cannot keep you from serving Christ. (The only one who can do that is you if you give up.) We are not without hope in even the darkest circumstance. That is how Paul put his adversity into perspective in verses 20-21.

The prospect of Paul’s eminent death mentioned here was very real. He knew that, though he was innocent of the charges against him, things could go against his freedom. He could lose his life. Yet he had made peace with that. He had seen the worst that could happen to him and realized that it wasn’t that bad.

In essence, Paul is saying, "I can’t lose! If I live through this I will gain. If I die in this I will gain even more."

The situation’s power over him to ruin him was broken at that point! He had faced the worst, and discovered that he had the resources to deal with it.

Pay attention here, please. Here is where our true perspective is often exposed. If we haven’t invested very much into our faith and into eternal things, they probably won’t seem very important to us. They won’t seem very real. We’ll remain tightly attached to our material lives. The prospect of losing some of those things will threaten us severely. I fear that if some of us had to leave some of the things of this life right now, we would be very disappointed.

Paul had invested all he had in Christ. His whole life was the cause of Christ, so in reality, he had nothing here to lose. If God chose to bring him home, all the better! To him it would mean leaving all this misery behind and entering his reward. What a contrast in perspective to the person who clings desperately to this life and the things in it! We will cling to what we love and often it is in situations like this that we learn where our love really is.

There is an adjustment that I have observed in the lives of several saints of God that I have known who were facing their eminent death. One was a preacher, a man in his forties, whom I met in California. He lived in the little town of Burney where he was a bi-vocational minister. He was having headaches, so he went to the doctor. It was a malignant brain tumor. At first, he was panicked. "What am I going to do? How will my family get along without me? What about my work for Christ? It isn’t finished yet!" Over the months, as his time to die approached, I observed a remarkable change in him. He ceased clinging hopelessly to life and openly embraced his approaching glorification. The fear and dread were gone. He passed into eternity as an excellent Christian witness.

I watched this same thing happen with Eleanor Winters and Gwen Burdick – former members of this congregation whom some of you know. At first, there was fear, but as time went along, the prospect of death was faced and reduced to what it really is for a Christian.

Back in 1912 a group of Englishmen were waiting for death in an ice-hut in the Antarctic. Their expedition had become stranded and they ran out of food. One of them, the doctor of the party (a man named Edward Wilson) was writing a note to be left for his wife. These are some excerpts from what he said:

"Don't be unhappy.... We are playing a good part in a great scheme arranged by God Himself, and all is well.... We will all meet after death, and death has no terrors.... All is for the best to those who love God, and ... we have both loved Him with all our lives.... Life itself is a small thing to me now, but my love for you is forever and part of our love for God. All the things I had hoped to do with you after this Expedition are as nothing now, but there are greater things for us in the world to come.... All is well."(1)

There is a man who had looked at the worst his situation could do to him, and found it to be manageable.

Resolved: I will face the worst. Thirdly:

You probably are aware that the Chinese "alphabet" is a series of pictures. Perhaps you also knew that the Chinese picture for "crisis" is actually a combination of two smaller pictures. One means "danger" and the other means "opportunity."

Every problem or crisis we face is an opportunity for God to accomplish something in our lives. That is the way Paul saw his situation.

In verses 23-25, he wrote,

Some years ago now, John Walsh dropped off his 6-year-old son in a mall video arcade. The young boy, Adam, was abducted and murdered. As a result of this tragedy, the Adam Walsh Foundation was established to help others who have experienced the same kind of tragedy, and to teach parents how to minimize the risk of their children becoming victims. John Walsh, founder and host of the "America’s Most Wanted" TV program, was able to turn a horrendous disaster into an opportunity to help many people.

No one likes living through a crisis. I am certainly not suggesting here that we should cease trying to avoid the kinds of "bad situations" that come in life. No matter what we do to avoid them though, difficulties will come - like the words of an Australian preacher: "Rooster today, feather duster tomorrow."(2)

When difficult times come, will we rise above the adversity and use it somehow to help others, or will it use us and make our faith a shambles?

A vacationer watched with curiosity as a lumberman occasionally jabbed his sharp hook into a log, separating it from the others that were floating down a mountain stream. When asked why he did this, the worker replied, "These may all look alike to you, but a few of them are quite different. The ones I let pass are from trees that grew in a valley where they were always protected from the storms. Their grain is coarse. The ones I've hooked and kept apart from the rest came from high up on the mountains. From the time they were small, they were beaten by strong winds. This toughens the trees and gives them a fine and beautiful grain. We save them for choice work. They're too good to make into plain lumber."

Our problems aren’t punishment. They are opportunities to experience the power of God in our lives - to be changed into something useful to Him and to others.

We can greet a "bad situation" with dread, disappointment, and discouragement, or we can rise above it, and learn to make the most of it. That is what I suggest we be ready to do.

May God give us the presence of mind to make these three resolutions a part of our agenda when we face the difficulties of life!

Footnotes:

1. W.E. Sangster, The Craft of Sermon Construction, Zondervan, 1987, p. 66-67.
2. "Rags and Robes," Homiletics, October/December 1992, p. 9.

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

[Archive]    [Home]   [Comments]   [Search]