April 24, 2000
Lesson for May 7
Christian faith does not live on Easy Street
___2 Corinthians 1:1-2:17
___By Stacy Conner
___First Baptist Church, Muleshoe
___Suffering seems to be a recurring theme in the book of 2 Corinthians.
___For some reason--I think a flawed view of God--we have decided faith in God means everything works out easily.
___For example, people speak of having to make a job transfer in terms of timing and efficiency that lead us to believe God is at work.
___This must have been God's will. The house sold. The kids love their new school. Bob got a raise. We just love our new church.
___Everything has just worked out perfectly. We associate ease with the will of God. Yet very little of the biblical revelation bears witness to that type of thinking.
___Paul's letter of 2 Corinthians certainly does not testify to everything working to perfection or with ease during Paul's life.
___The Christian life is one of combat. It is like a soldier standing on a hill trying to survive an attack from every direction (4:7-12).
___As an apostle, Paul faced every imaginable human peril-- hardships, riots, hunger, being considered a liar, being a stranger and thought to be almost dead (6:1-10).
___Paul is cut with the deepest insult that can be given a preacher by his accusers. As a preacher, he is considered weak in bodily presence and his speaking style is deplorable (10:9-10).
___The 11th chapter is filled with a litany of painful and excruciating tortures.
___He has been flogged, stoned, lashed, threatened by Jews and Gentiles alike and has faced the terrible stress oftraveling in a Pre-Everywhere-You-Want-to-Be Visa world (11:23-29).
___Paul lived under the constant mental anguish of concern over the young churches he had just planted (11:28).
___But in the12th chapter, we find an experience that does not measure up to the theology of an easy faith.
___Three times Paul had requested that God remove his "thorn in the flesh." And every time the answer was that God's grace is sufficient.
___The two recurring themes of this letter are that living a life of faith is not easy.
___But miraculously, God continues to sustain those who are suffering, which in turn enables those who have been sustained to sustain others (1:4).
___Paul's testimony of God's sustaining grace has a more realistic and believable ring to it than a witness that testifies only to God's working out life's puzzle.
___Hopefully, most of us did not place our faith in a Jesus so he would simply make us happy, solve all of our scheduling dilemmas and iron out all our wrinkles.
___We placed our faith in a Christ who bore the weight of humanity's sin upon the cross and has promised to be with us in a dark world tainted by evil.
___For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ (1:5).
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