Dealing With Life’s Problems Through Christ

Life has problems. Now deal with it.

Our choice is not whether to have problems – we will have problems. Our choice is whether we deal with these problems on our own, or with Christ in us.

Christ can keep us out of problems, and we may never know how many times he has intervened for us, to keep us out of problems. But in general, it seems that we have roughly the same number of accidents and diseases and other problems as other people do. Christ does not promise us a problem-free life, and I hope that this is not the motive for anyone here becoming a Christian, because Christ allows us to have our fair share of problems.

Christ can rescue us from problems, too, and we may not know how often he does that, either, but still the fact remains that he frequently lets us stay in the problems. Now we have to deal with them.

Sometimes we can fix the problems. Sometimes we have to endure the problems, and sometimes we actually die because of the problems.

Maybe that sounds pessimistic, but that’s the way it is. God does not exist to bail us out of the problems that we get ourselves into, or even the problems that other people cause for us. He lets us suffer persecution, and he lets us suffer from mistakes that other people make, and he lets us make mistakes ourselves. Hopefully we make fewer mistakes as we get older, but then we start having problems associated with getting older.

I might wish that it weren’t so, but my wishes do not change reality.

So, like it or not, we will have problems, and our choice is to deal with them with our own strength and wisdom, or we can deal with them through Christ.

Let’s look at a passage of Scripture that talks about the way we deal with problems: 2 Corinthians chapter 1. When Paul wrote this letter, he had a few problems, some of them caused by persecution in Ephesus, and some of them caused by the church in Corinth. So he knows what he’s talking about.

The letter starts in the usual way – naming the writers first, and then the recipients: ¹ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:

So Paul and Timothy are writing not just to the church in Corinth, but also to other churches in southern Greece. Even though the church in Corinth has some problems, the gospel is spreading in this area, and Paul and Timothy include them in on the discussion.

Verse 2 is fairly routine: ² Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Greek letters normally began with some sort of prayer or praise for the gods. Paul does this, too. In verse 3 he writes, ³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, the words compassion and comfort are important here.

Verse 4 explains why this is important: [God] comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

So Paul is talking about problems here – or in this translation, he uses the word “troubles.” There is no promise here that God will prevent all our troubles, or rescue us as soon as it starts to get difficult – no, the promise here is that God will comfort us when we have problems.

Why? So that we can give comfort to other people. God is not so much interesting in fixing our problems as he is in using them as opportunities for us to learn how to help other people. God’s purpose for our life is not to give us a trouble-free life. No, his plan is that we learn to be more like him, that we learn to care about other people.

Personal problems can make us self-centered, and it is natural that when we are in the midst of a big problem, that all our attention is focused on that particular problem. That’s understandable. Even Paul seems a little focused on himself at this point in his life.

In most of his letters, he thanks God for the work that he is doing in the lives of his readers. In this letter, he thanks God for the work that God is doing in his own life. But at least he sees beyond his present troubles and thinks ahead to how these might help him be a better servant of Christ.

So he says, now that we’ve been through some problems, we can better help people who have problems. In today’s language, we might say that he can empathize with them.

Now Paul is no stranger to trials. He was beaten and shipwrecked and thrown in prison several times. He has had times of cold and hunger – he’s had lots of problems, but his current one was the biggest one of all. Unfortunately, he doesn’t tell us what it is – but he says that God helped him in it, and helped him out of it, and that because of this experience, he is better able to help other people who have their problems.

I wish I knew how this works. I wish I had a neat and tidy formula for it, like five easy steps to getting the most benefit out of your problems. Well, I don’t know. I do know that problems can help us grow. We cannot learn to be patient unless we are in unpleasant situations. We cannot learn to forgive unless we first get hurt.

Yes, we will have problems, but we need to look beyond those problems to see the bigger picture, and that is that God has a purpose for our life. Whether we have problems or not, he is working in our lives for his purpose – and his purpose includes changing us, and working through us to change and help others.

So when we have a problem, we can admit that it is a problem, and if there’s something we can do about it, then we ought to do it. But we also have to realize that that problem does not define who we are. It does not change the fact that God has something bigger in mind for us. We should not let the problems cause us to be focused only on ourselves.

At the least, as Paul says, the experience can equip us to help people who are going through similar trials – and going by what Paul says, that must be important. Let’s see what he writes in verse 5:

⁵ For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives,…

Whoa – now there’s a heavy thought. The sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives. Has your life ever felt that way?

It’s kind of a dismal thought, until we realize that we are going to suffer anyway. We can look at our problems as purposeless and senseless, or we can look at them as sharing in the sufferings of Christ. We can look at them as being pointless, or we can look at them as being significant.

As Paul says in Philippians, if we share in his sufferings we will also share in his resurrection. If we share in his life in the flesh, then we will share in his life in the spirit. The point is that we share in Christ.

After all, he shared in our life. He became a human being. He lived and suffered and died – and was resurrected. And he invites us to join him in this journey. We can see our sufferings as pointless, or we can see them as part of the path that Christ went on – and when we see ourselves on that path, then we can also see where that path goes to: into resurrection and glory.

Paul talks about it more in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. In a figure of speech, he says that we have God’s treasure – the promise of eternal life – hidden in jars of clay, in mortal human beings.

Verses 10 and 11: We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.

Maybe that sounds gloomy, but Paul says it is glorious. We are to take up our cross and die daily; we are to crucify in ourselves everything that is contrary to God, so that in the end it is not we who live, but Christ lives in us. We must decrease, and he must increase in us. When we share in his life, then that means that we share in the sufferings of Jesus. Our problems are his problems.

And what’s the purpose of all this death? We see it in verse 7: We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. These difficulties in life are supposed to point us to God, not to ourselves. We are to look to him for strength, not try to do it all on our own. We want the life of Jesus to be revealed working in and through us.

Let’s go back to 2 Corinthians 1, verse 5. In the last half of this verse Paul tells us the other half of the story: …so also through Christ our comfort overflows. So if we share in his sufferings, then we will also be able to share in the comfort he gives us, and we will be able to share it with others. We will be agents Christ uses to help others in their trials.

As Paul says in verse 6, If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.

So Paul is saying, My problems are for your good, so that you will be able to endure the same sufferings I’ve suffered. You will have seen in me an example of faith in time of trial. You will think, If he can do it, then I can, too. If he keeps the faith even through that terrible trouble, then I can keep the faith through mine. Even if he dies in faith, then I can, too. I am going to die anyway, so I might as well die in faith.

OK, so Paul is saying: I’ve got problems. You’ve got problems. I am going through my problems so I can help you. You are going through your problems so you can help somebody else. This is what it means to share in the life of Jesus Christ – we share in the sufferings as well as the glory.

Verse 7: And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. We will both end up OK.

So now, starting in verse 8, Paul gives us a little glimpse of what he has been going through: ⁸ 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.

Paul had gone into Ephesus, in the province of Asia, because he knew that there would be many opportunities for the gospel in this large city. But he also knew that there would be problems. Even in his first letter, he mentioned that he had to fight wild beasts in Ephesus. But it seems to have gotten even worse than that – far beyond what he could handle. We don’t know whether Paul was so depressed that he wanted to die, or that he thought the officials would condemn him to death.

What about dealing with life’s problems through Christ? Does it ever seem that our problems are far beyond our ability to endure? Do we ever despair of life?

Most of us have troubles like that at least once in life. Some of us have troubles like that far more often. Paul had quite a few, I think, including this one in Ephesus.

Verse 9: Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. Do our problems cause us to become so self-absorbed that we leave God out of the picture? I hope not.

But sometimes the problems get so bad that there is no earthly solution, that the problems are indeed far beyond our ability to deal with. Then, we have to rely on God – and accept the deliverance that he gives.

Sometimes the deliverance is death, and we accept that. We are all going to die anyway, and it is far better to die in faith than it is to die full of despair and fear. But God gives us life more often than death, and he will bring us through the situation whether we feel capable of handling it or not.

We may not know how, but we will get through one way or another. We may have to make some sacrifices, but God will bring us through – and his purpose for all that is, number one, that we learn to rely on him, and number two, that we become more compassionate and able to help other people in their difficulties.

Will that make it easy? No, it will not. But it will make it worthwhile. Our choice is whether to have problems – our choice is what we do with those problems, and in those problems.

Paul is not just writing a theoretical essay about the purpose of problems in Christian life. No, he is living in the midst of problems himself, sharing his experience and thoughts with us.

Paul wants the Corinthians to know that even if they suffer trials like he did, and apparently some of them were, even if they despair of life itself, they can share in his consolation. They can hope for rescue, or at the least, as verse 9 says, they can have faith in the God who raises the dead.

Paul is confident that God will pull him through. Verse 10: He has delivered us from such a deadly peril [before], and he will deliver us [in the present]. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,

Verse 11: as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

In Paul’s great trial, he was not alone, just him and God. No, he counted on the prayers of his people. Paul was a part of this community, and just as they would share in the comfort he received from God, he also expected them to share in his prayers, with the result that they would be able to share in the thanks for the deliverance that God gives.

When we have trials, do we seek the prayers of God’s people? And as members of a community of believers, do we pray for one another, and rejoice with one another at the blessings that God gives? Do we share in the life of Jesus?

Shortly after Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians, he was able to travel to Corinth and restore the relationship he had with those people. And it was in Corinth that he wrote the book of Romans.

I think his severe trial in Ephesus, where he despaired of life, forms part of the background for what he wrote in Romans chapter 8 and verse 18. For the conclusion of this message, let’s take a quick look at that verse: Romans 8, verse 18 – I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

My friends, no matter how dark the days are right now, no matter what secret burden you may be carrying by yourself, so that you despair of ever escaping, I assure you: The best is yet ahead, and it is so good that the problems we have now will fade into a distant memory.

Right now, they are really bad. I don’t want to pretend that everything is OK. But God will provide a way of escape – trust in him, and see how this problem might be used to help not just you, but other people through you. Right now, we are sharing in the sufferings of Jesus, and he is with us. Be assured, that we will also share in his resurrection – a resurrection with so much glory! Your problems may be as big as a mountain, but the glory is like an ocean that swallows up that mountain so that it is never seen again, nor even remembered.