Purpose Series

Over the past three weeks, we’ve been taking a Biblical look at hardship … what the Bible says it is … why we experience hardship … and how we should respond to the trials and challenges of life from a Biblical perspective. God uses the trials and hardships of life to teach us … to help us grow and become stronger, more affective Christians and servants of God. God works His good through our trials and difficulties when we pray and when we stay. This week we’re going to wrap up this brief series by exploring how God loves to bring out His purposes through our problems.

If I had to sum up this whole series on hardship, I would sum it up with this personal observation: Where I end, God begins … and to help me explain what that means, I’ve invited the Apostle Paul here today to share his experience and understanding about hardship and the ways in which God uses those experiences to mold us and shape us into powerful, effective Christians eager to answer His call in our lives.

Well … welcome, Paul.

“Shalom, my Christian friend and brother. Thank you for this opportunity to preach the Good News here in Canton. Beautiful mountains filled with beautiful people. What I’ve been asked to do, if I understand your pastor correctly, is to share a bit of my experience with trials and hardship and then let your pastor give you some insight into how all of this can help you … is that right, Pastor Pike? Good.

“As you probably know, I used to search for Christians in order to make them suffer. My life was profoundly changed when I met Jesus in a dramatic way on my way to Damascus to arrest and imprison as many Christians as I could possibly round up. While I didn’t fully understand what Jesus meant at the time, Jesus made it clear to me at my conversion that I would be sent to tell people about Him. As Jesus explained to His faithful servant, Ananias, ‘I will show him how much he must suffer for my name’ (Acts 9:16).

“Of course, Jesus was right. I had the privilege of bringing the Gospel to different parts of the world. I started a number of churches and got to watch them come to life and begin to grow and thrive. After spending time in these cities … teaching and encouraging new believers … I often wrote letters to them as a way of keeping in touch with them and letting them know how I was doing while passing on to them what information I could about the spread and growth of the church during my travels. Some of my letters were designed to teach and equip my brothers and sisters as they continued to grow into Christians who would change the world. I had no idea that some of my letters would have survived this long and continue to teach and encourage generations of Christians around the world. Enough boasting, eh?

“Pastor Pike asked me here to shed some light on a passage that I wrote to the church at Corinth. Tough town to start and maintain a church in, let me tell you. Many of my Christian brothers and sisters in Corinth who were totally on fire when I left there were beginning to struggle with their faith in the face of growing opposition from their skeptical and sometimes hostile Jewish neighbors and the deeply pagan and cosmopolitan community that surrounded them. Some of them began abandoning the movement and started lapsing into their old ways … so I wrote them a couple of letters to both comfort and confront them. In my first letter, I corrected them on some topics that they were confused about. I addressed issues of divisions that were beginning to develop … immorality … lawsuits … marriage and singleness … attacks on my claim to be an apostle of Christ … the Lord’s Supper … the origin and use of spiritual gifts … the Resurrection … and the importance of regular giving as a way of supporting the church.

“Needless to say, the situation for the Christians in Corinth continued to get worse, so I wrote them a second letter explaining to them that God comforts us when we go through hard times and that God will use our trials and difficulties so that we will be able to understand and walk through hard times with other people. I also explained the importance of not being unequally yoked with unbelievers and how to grow in generosity. Even though it’s something that I don’t like to do, I felt the need to defend my ministry because there were a number of church leaders in Corinth who were attacking my authority and my claim to be a genuine apostle of Jesus Christ.