This sermon was preached at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cherry Log, Georgia on Sunday, July 15, 2012 by Rev. Paul Mims.

II Corinthians 4:7-18

Ted Turner, the founder of the Cable News Network, and the owner of the Atlanta Braves Baseball team received the Humanist Of The Year award in 1990. In his acceptance speech, which he made in Orlando, Florida, he told of his sister who became critically ill when she was a child. He said that he had been reared in a God- fearing family and he prayed fervently that God would heal her. But instead, she got worse and died.
Then he said, “From then on I knew, even as a kid, that there was no God up there. What kind of a loving God would have allowed my sister to suffer and die?”

Ted Turner said that from that time forward in his life he has depended only on himself and not on “an unfeeling, phantom-being that did not exist.”

Turner is not alone in the way he feels.

In his autobiography, GROWING UP, Pulitzer prize-winning columnist, Russell Baker, tells of his struggle in the loss of his father when he was just five years old. He grew up in Virginia during the depression. His father went into a diabetic coma and died suddenly. To spare the five-year-old boy the pain of being around his grieving family, they sent him to stay with a family friend named Bessie Scott.

The boy asked, “If God loves me, why did he make my father die?” Bessie said that I would understand some day, but she was only partly right. That afternoon, though I couldn’t have phrased it that way then, I decided that God was a lot less interested in people than anybody in Morrisonville was willing to admit. That day, I decided that God was not entirely to be trusted. After that I never cried again with any real conviction, nor expected much of anyone’s God except indifference, nor loved deeply without fear that it would cost me dearly in pain. At the age of five, I had become a skeptic.

Life is sometimes like riding a bucking horse. When I was a child, one of the most exciting times of the year was when the rodeo came to town. Growing up on a farm, I had been around animals and understood how fearsome and strong they could be. I had tried to ride a pony that was unbroken and had gotten thrown off. Then I went to the rodeo and watched the cowboys ride the powerful steers and bucking horses. As they would come out of the shute, trying to throw the riders off their backs, someone in the crowd would yell, “Hang in there!” The winner of the contest was the one who could hang on the longest.

Do you ever feel like you are about to be thrown off balance, off course, or off your faith? How do you hang in there when things are not right in your family, or in your work, or in your service to the Lord? Many who are riding the bucking horses of family problems are getting thrown off. Try to hang on to the back of a bucking horse at work is too much for some. Others turn on God when life throws them to the ground.

The Apostle Paul taught us how to hang in there.

I. PROBLEMS ARE COMMON TO ALL PEOPLE. “We are pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (vv.8-9).

One of the biggest lies of Satan is that Christians do not suffer. The reasoning goes like this: “I believe in God. I serve him. I love him. Therefore he is obligated to keep me from suffering that is common to man.”

God is not obligated to do anything but to keep his promises. He has promised to keep his children from spiritual evil and harm. But he has not promised to keep us from accidents, illness, or emotional or physical distress. To do so would make us unnatural in this world. God still works through the natural law that he has created in the world. If one falls, God does not remove the natural law of gravity. If one drowns, God does not remove the natural effect of water in the lungs. If one is in a car accident, God does not remove the law of forward motion. If one gets a disease, God does not always remove the natural course of the disease. God’s world of order would be in chaos if he exempted all who asked him to free them from the natural consequences of life.

The same is true on the emotional level. God does not exempt his people from emotional distress. Listen to Paul who describes his own experience as he served the Lord with all his heart: We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed… This is a picture of a person in a life battle surrounded by enemies. But at the last moment a single way of escape is made. There are times when it seems like the enemy closes in on us and there is no way out. But before we are crushed, God opens a way before us. It may be that you face a situation that is causing you much mental distress. Just wait on the Lord and look for the way out!

…perplexed, but not in despair… Another way of saying this is, “We are at a loss, but never totally at a loss.” We ask “Why?” We are mystified that God would allow such a thing to happen to us. But then we remember that Jesus said, “In the world you are going to have tribulation.” Faith keeps us from despair.

…persecuted, but not abandoned… We may face the critical tongues of others, we may face opposition from the most unsuspecting quarter, we may face roadblocks at every turn, we may be the object of ridicule and scorn, but faith tells us that we are never abandoned by God.

…struck down, but not destroyed. The image here is being struck down in battle and left for dead. But life continues to surge and you get up on your feet again. Your wounds are cared for until they heal and you are not destroyed. Some of us here today are struck down and are deeply wounded. But he who heals broken hearts and broken spirits is among us and he will raise you up.

When we lived in Atlanta, I often went to Emory Hospital to visit patients. It was always a chore to park there and I often had to go to the very top of the parking garage to find a space. But I enjoyed looking over the trees from the ninth floor. I read of an instance that took place there on the top of the parking garage.

Terry Stout, the business manager for the psychiatry department at Emory University Hospital, drove to the top floor of the parking garage so that he could look at the sky and savor the beauty of the day for a few moments before he went to his office.

But when he got out of his car he saw a woman. She was standing on a narrow beam that was sticking out from the roof of the parking deck. There was only about two inches of steel keeping her from falling to the pavement nine floors below. Terry put down his briefcase and quietly walked over to her. He asked her if he could help.

She told him that she wanted to be with Jesus. She said that she was confused and had had committed sins and never did anything right. Terry listened and talked softly to her. He talked about God’s forgiveness, and the possibility of her enjoying peace and happiness if she put her faith in God.

As they talked, a crowd began to gather. And among the newcomers was a psychiatrist, who joined Terry in talking to the girl. But the doctor’s approach was psychiatric, and the girl wanted to talk about God. So Terry did most of the talking.

He offered her a pin that he was wearing. It had the words, “There’s Hope” on it, and he offered it to her as a gift. He told her that Jesus would help her in her distress and that they would pray together if she would return to the roof.

Hesitantly, the girl began moving backward to safety. The crown that had gathered wanted to surround and comfort her, but Terry waved them back. He told everyone to kneel, and true to his promise, he said a prayer for the young lady.

And now, years later, that young lady is doing well and continues to wear the pin, “There’s Hope.”

II. PERSPECTIVE MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE. “Therefore we do not lose heart…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 we see is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was converted as a teenager in a Primitive Methodist chapel. After finishing high school, he applied to Cambridge, but they would not accept him because he was a Baptist. So he educated himself and became one of the greatest preachers the world has ever known. He built a large congregation in London. He also built a school for preachers. But he suffered long years of painful gout. His wife was an invalid most of his ministry. Regarding his troubles, he said,

God is too kind to be cruel;
God is too wise to make a mistake;
When we cannot trace the hand of God,
We must trust the heart of God.

The Bible gives us some examples of people who trusted the heart of God.

The three Hebrew children, who, when they were about to be cast into the fiery furnace, said, “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But it not, be it known unto you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, nor worship the golden image which you have set up.” (Daniel 3:17-18).

Notice the words, “But if not…” They were determined to trust God regardless of what happened.

You remember that Job lost everything. Ashe was trying to sort through its meaning he said, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” (Job 13:15). Job had a perspective that caused him to trust God regardless of what happened.

Our Lord Jesus prayed in the garden a prayer that we can make our own in times of trouble. “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)

William Cowper wrote a poem entitled THE MYSTERIOUS WAY, in which he said,

“God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense but trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face.”

You can “Hang in there” if you realize that problems are common to all people. God is not singling you out for suffering. And if you have the perspective of faith that will trust God all the way through it, you will not lose heart.

PRAISE BE TO HIS NAME!