Overcoming
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· 16 viewsFocus on Jesus as he has overcome your problems
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Problems
Problems
Question for everyone
What are you worried about?
Who will suffer the consequences of the thing you’re worried about?
It’s mostly about what will effect us.
Plough through
Plough through
Paul’s burden and despair, things don’t always go well-
For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
Sometimes we have to “plough through”, a good skill to develop in our youth:
It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
What is a yoke?
Explain Yoke - placed on the shoulders of the beasts of burden, also, look earlier in lamentations
“My transgressions were bound into a yoke; by his hand they were fastened together; they were set upon my neck; he caused my strength to fail; the Lord gave me into the hands of those whom I cannot withstand.
The root cause of our difficulties - we live in a fallen world surrounded by sin, some of that sin is our own.
Perspective
Perspective
Don’t put off learning how to handle difficulties - instead the solution is ‘Remember your Creator’.
Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;
We won’t escape suffering, Jesus told us so:
Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
Look what happened to Paul:
Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?
But we can see the bigger picture like Paul:
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
What is seen?
The ESV Study Bible Chapter 4
Paul’s suffering and all the shortcomings of this present age
What is unseen?
The ESV Study Bible Chapter 4
the full restoration of all things at the resurrection to come, and the sure fulfillment of God’s purposes for history
It’s all about our perspective, there’s more to our lives than our current problems.
What are some of the current problems affecting our world?
Starvation, poverty, politics, etc. Our problems are small in comparison to those!
Paul is thinking bigger though:
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
Our problems are tiny compared to what is coming, what Christ has done for us
“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus has already defeated our problems - he has conquered sin and is restoring our fallen world.
In it together
In it together
If we are capable of carrying our own load we can help each other carry our loads -
Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.
Remember Paul’s burden, look how he handled it - the full story.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
Close in prayer for our fallen world and each other