Straight Talk About Real Life

Straight Talk About Life’s Problems

II Corinthians 4:8&9, 18

Did you make it?  Did you make it through the worst day of the year?  Monday, January 24, was the worst day of the year – at least that’s what we heard several times that day on the radio and television.  “Experts” have determined that a combination of the post-holiday blues; post-holiday bills; short, cold days; long, cold nights; tax bills; W-2’s that tell us just how much we got paid, only to realize how little we did with it – all combine to make January 24 the worst day of the year.  Did you make it?  Some of you right now are going into retroactive depression!

It’s true that sometimes we all face bad days.  There are some days when the problems of life seem to get the best of us and we struggle just to make it through.  It happens to all of us occasionally, but some of us seem to handle those days better than others.  Today we are beginning a new series called “Straight Talk About Real Life.”  Over the weeks to come, we are going to take a hard look at some of the big issues of life, and find a Biblical perspective on each one.  We will look at issues like “change, relationships, forgiveness, stress, finances, sex depression and growth.”

Today we are going to begin with Straight Talk About Life’s Problems.  It’s still relatively early in the new year – we have almost concluded the first month – and the year ahead will inevitably bring with it some measure of problems and difficulties.  Life is like that.  Life is basically a series of mountains and valleys, ups and downs, highs and lows, good times and bad, obstacles and opportunities, problems and potentials.  They all tend to come at us at the same time.  In the year ahead we will have some depressing days.  No doubt about it.  Days when we will ask, “Why did I get up this morning?”  Days when we feel like we are not making any progress in our lives, when we will feel like a failure, or days that surprise us with tragedy.

What do we do with those days?  How do we handle those problems?

The Bible says it starts by changing the way we think.  The Germans have a saying that says, “Mann ist was mann isst.”  It means, in English, “You are what you eat.”  According to the Bible, however, the truth is that we are what we think.  In Proverbs 23:7 we read, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”  The way to change the way we deal with our problems is to change the way we think about our problems.  Our biggest problem is our perspective – how we look at the issue.  When we have the right perspective on our problems, we can handle almost anything.  When we have the wrong perspective on our problems, we can handle almost nothing.  Even the smallest problem will cause us to slip into despair.

In the Bible, there were lots of people who people in the Bible who faced amazing problems, but few suffered more than the Apostle Paul.  In 2 Corinthians he tells us about some of the problems he faced.  In chapter 1 verse 8 he writes, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia.  We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.”  He tells about being beaten, imprisoned, stoned, scourged, left for dead, shipwrecked, adrift on the sea for two days, snake-bit, slandered, cold, poor and homeless – but in each case, he endured and overcame.  In chapter 4, verses 8&9 he sums it up by saying, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

We sang a song this morning that was inspired by those verses, but I want them to do more than inspire the way we sing – I want them to inspire the way we live!

This is a guy who has learned the secret of dealing with problems!  He’s been knocked down but not knocked out – he just keeps on keeping on.  Wouldn’t it be great to have that kind of endurance, that kind of stamina, that kind of determination in the months ahead?  How does someone get that?  How do we keep from being beat up by our problems?  How do we obtain and maintain such a strong demeanor when things go wrong?  People pay thousands of dollars for seminars in character development – they pay upwards of $90 per hour for counseling to learn the secret to dealing with troubles – and yet the key is found here in the writing of Paul.

Jump down to verses 16-18.

Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Notice how many of these words deal with perspective?  There’s the outward; there’s the inward.  There’s the momentary, and there’s the eternal.  There’s the light troubles and the eternal glory that outweighs it.  There’s the seen, and there’s the unseen. 

Paul was able to handle the overwhelming difficulties of his life by keeping track of how he was thinking about those difficulties. 

The outward v the inward - Physical Troubles

Paul was able to keep a perspective that allowed him to deal with struggles that affected him physically.  We have already said that Paul faced many physical trials – beatings, snake-bites and the rest, but there was more.  He shares with us in his writings that there was a physical trial that he faced that would appear to be a health problem.  He calls it a “thorn in the flesh,” in chapter 12, verse 7 of this same letter.  We don’t really know what it was, but Paul tells us that it was “given” to him “to keep him from becoming conceited.”  It was no easy thing to bear.  Paul says that this thorn “tormented him!”  It was not easy!  In verse 8 of that chapter he writes, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.” 

Some believe this might have been failing eyesight.  They surmise that from the end of the letter he wrote to the church in Galatia – in Galatians 6:11, we read this interesting verse:  “See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hands!”  That leads some to believe that Paul’s eyesight was failing – could that have been his thorn in the flesh?  We don’t know – and, quite frankly, it doesn’t matter.

The important thing about the thorn that Paul had to deal with is that he dealt with it.  He pleaded with the Lord to take it away, and the Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for you.”  In affect, God was saying, “Paul, I have saved your soul, I have a home for you in eternity with me, you will enjoy eternal life – but as for this problem that you have – you are going to have to deal with it, I will not take it away.” 

And that is exactly what Paul did.  That’s why he writes, “Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day…”  Paul knew what many of us are learning, and some of us are resisting – our physical bodies are going to waste away.  For some of us it will be because of age, for some of us it will not be the years, it will be the mileage – for Paul it was both.  He lived a pretty long life – well into his 60’s, but they were years of strain and abuse, and he bore the results in his body.

Some of you will face some physical challenges this year.   Perhaps a broken bone, or an illness will strike.  I think of a year ago, when Phil Smet was in our midst – ready to return to the mission field in Venezuela, and two weeks before they were supposed to go, he underwent bypass surgery for a heart condition – completely unexpected.  Of course, we know that God did that so that he could go to Washington, DC with us.  The truth is, it ended his career as a pilot – it delayed their return, it was a major issue to confront.  But all through it, Phill knew that though his outward body was failing, God was renewing his spirit daily.  I know – I saw it.

Some of us this year may sit in a doctor’s office, look in his face and see the grim news before he ever says a word.  “It doesn’t look good.”  Some of us may face the physical wasting away of someone we love.  Let’s be real here, not everything that happens in our lives is good – those who try to tell you that the Christian life is always good and easy are lying to you!  There are a lot of bad things that happen – but God is always good!  And God’s plan for you is good and God can always bring good out of bad if we will trust Him and let Him.

Paul was able to endure the physical problems because he kept a proper perspective – the outward may waste away, but God renews our inner spirit with blessing after blessing.  Our outward, physical bodies may fail, but our inward, spirit is being renewed every day.  I can prove it to you.  If you are 46, like I am, you still feel the same, in your spirit, as you did at 25 – don’t you?  Your spirit – the inner you, is still the same!  That’s why we try to play basketball with the kids, carry wood we just chopped, or climb up on a chair to change a light bulb like we did when we were 18 – because in our spirit we still are 18!  Our bodies have a way of reminding us later that we are really 46, but our spirit is eternal – and on top of that, God is preparing an eternal, glorified body for us – to live is Christ, to die is better!  When we recognize that, and remind ourselves of that truth, our perspective will be one of recognizing His blessings and being thankful for them whatever the circumstance.  

The momentary v the eternal – Emotional Troubles

The Momentary versus the Eternal.  We tend to think in eternal, absolute terms when things are going wrong.  Such thinking leads to Emotional problems – mostly depression.  We get kind of “all or nothing” in our thinking.  It goes something like this:  “Everyone hates me!”  “This stuff always happens to me!”  When someone asks what’s wrong, we say, “Everything!”  No, it’s not.  Something may be wrong, there may even be several things wrong.  But everything is not wrong!  When we make a mistake we say, “I can’t do anything right!”  That’s not true – you can do some things right – but when we have the wrong perspective emotionally we tend to think that momentary things are eternal, and when something goes wrong, everything has gone wrong.

It’s a matter of perspective – it’s a matter of telling myself the truth.  If I went home today from church and turned on the water in my kitchen, and no water came out, I wouldn’t run outside, throw my hands in the air and yell out, “The world is out of water!”  No, the world is not out of water – my faucet is broke, or my well pump is burned out, or my well is dry –but the world is not out of water.  But we do the same thing all the time when we get the momentary and the eternal confused – when the nothing becomes the all.

Do you know who the biggest liar in your life is?  It’s not your ex-husband or -wife, it’s not your in-laws or the guy at work who wants to step all over you on his way to the top.  The biggest liar in your life – is YOU!  In my life, it’s ME – I tell myself I’m a loser, a terrible husband, father, pastor, friend.  I tell myself I’m worthless to God, a failure, a fraud. 

But that stuff needs to be recognized for exactly what it is – lies from the pit of hell!  God didn’t make any junk!  He didn’t make any “worthless” people.  In fact, there is so much worth in each of us that He paid an incredibly high price for us – the blood of His own Son.  If you haven’t experienced that truth yet, let me just share with you this great truth – God loves you!  He loves you if you are short or tall, fat or skinny, black or white, slow or fast, rich or poor.  No matter how much you may feel like a loser – God values you!  You may not think your life is worth anything – God thinks your life is worth His own life. 

Jesus saw you, and He valued you so much that He voluntarily rose from His throne, took off His crown, His royal robes, and laid aside all the glory of heaven that was rightly His, and put on human flesh and blood, was born into abject poverty – lived as a homeless man with not even a single coin to use as an illustration in one of his sermons – and He sacrificed His body and His life so that you – you individually – could have a way to come and live with Him in His kingdom. 

It may be that you feel like no one else cares about you.  That is probably not true – it’s probably a lie from hell, but even if it were true that no one on earth cares about you – God does.  He loves you.  He knows your name, your blood type, your favorite color, that you hate Brussels sprouts and disco - He even knows how many hairs are on your head.  Even my wife doesn’t know that! 

When we are faced with the depression that sometimes creeps into our world, and we begin to speak in absolute terms – we need to realize that we are confusing the momentary with the eternal.  We need to get some proper perspective.  Paul wrote in Philippians 4:11, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.”  And he meant it – he wrote those words from a Roman prison.  He had “learned” that contentment – because he had learned to keep a proper perspective on his problems.  He says here, “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

The seen v the unseen – Spiritual Troubles

Some of us are able to handle physical problems with determination and grit.  Some of us seem immune to depression and emotional struggles.  But when we get our perspective of what is really important confused – we face spiritual trouble.  The seen and the unseen can trip us up.  So much of our lives are wrapped up in the stuff we see and experience around us.  We have this idea that money, position, power, prestige or possessions are the source of happiness.  We chase after better cars, better computers, better homes, better lovers – each time expecting that the next upgrade, the next experience will meet the longing in our lives.  It will bring the soothing that we need, finally scratch that illusive itch that we just can’t seem to reach.

But we soon find that that new experience, that new car, computer, home, position, or possession leaves us simply longing for more.  Think about it – just in the last week we’ve seen a marriage between two of the most beautiful, wealthy people in the world come to a sudden end.  They had it all – they had each other!  They both have celebrity, incredible looks, fabulous wealth.  Every toy known to man is available to them – private jets, servants, mansions, people fawning all over them – but they could not find happiness – not with the trophy spouse, not with the power, the wealth or the toys.

How can that be?  The Bible has the answer.  You might remember one of the verses we looked at in our messages on financial stewardship.  In Proverb 23:5 says,

Will you set your eyes on that which is not?

For riches certainly make themselves wings;

They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.

What we witness very publicly among Hollywood elites is no different than what we see or experience personally right here in Mayville.  The constant chasing for more, dissatisfaction with life, and grasping for happiness is described in the first line of that Proverb – it’s looking for something that doesn’t exist – looking for that which is not.

Paul echoes this thought in our text – he says, “So we fix our eyes not on what is see, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”  It’s all a matter or perspective.  We must recognize the reality of reality – the stuff we see now is fleeting – it is temporary!  It is the unseen – the eternal, the spiritual that is truly real – that is truly important.  The stuff we see is all going to be gone one day.  When we die, the toys we have gathered will be sold on ebay.  The riches we claw for will be happily taken by others.  The body we took so much pride in will return to dust. 

The truth is that if we can get this spiritual problem settled, then the physical and the emotional will fall into place as well.  It’s a matter of perspective.  If my health fails, I know that I have eternal life.  If my house burns down, I know that I have an eternal home.  If my job ends, I can trust that God is in control – even the worst that this life has to offer can be faced and endured when we have an eternal perspective.

Does that mean it’s easy? NO WAY!  Did it hurt when Paul was whipped – yes!  Did bones break, and cuts bleed when those who hated him stoned him? Undoubtedly!  Was it frightening to be adrift at sea for two days – it had to be!  Was there genuine emotion when he and Barnabus argued over John Mark joining them on one of their missions trips – an argument so strong that it broke up the team?  Certainly it was a tough time.  The man was human – but, he says, “we do not lose heart.”  Why?  Because he trusted in God, and that trust put it all in perspective.

Paul knew the Old Testament story of Joseph, whose own brothers wanted to kill him, but instead sold him as a slave, he was later falsely accused of rape, imprisoned innocently and then forgotten.  But through a miraculous chain of events, Joseph found himself elevated to the second highest position in all of Egypt, and he was able to say to those same brothers who had started the long list of unfair treatment – “What you meant for evil, God used for God.”  Even when things go bad, even when people mean to do bad things to us, God can use it for good – and He will!  That perspective allows us to face whatever problems life hurls at us and not lose heart.  We may grieve – grieving is a God given emotion.  We may hurt - pain is a vital important component of life.  But we don’t have to lose heart – because we can place our faith in God who is sovereign over all.

Did you survive the worst day of the year last Monday? 

Chances are, last Monday was not the worst day you will face in 2005.  None of us knows what challenges we will face – physically, emotionally, spiritually.  But if we can get our eyes off of the outward, off the momentary, off the seen, and set our eyes on the inward, the eternal and the unseen – we can find the strength to get through even the worst days.