What To Do When Facing Adversity
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Rabbi Rev. Dr. Michael H. Koplitz
13 But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I BELIEVED, THEREFORE I SPOKE,” we also believe, therefore we also speak, 14 knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. 15 For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. 16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 5:1 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
In the epistle 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 13, through the end of the chapter, St. Paul is telling us about the adversities that he had to suffer. People stoned him. He had to escape in a “life boat” over the wall of the city, and he had to endure other physical adversities. It was these adversities and more that landed him in Rome to meet his death, and it was not time for him. In his day, was not exactly the fun place to be. My guess is that he went through other adversities that never made it into his letters or into the book of Acts.
That being said, once he became the voice of Jesus on earth, he knew he had to complete the mission no matter what adversity was going to be before him. After he established several churches like this one in Corinth, a new adversity had arisen. The Roman Empire outlawed Christianity because it claimed that it had nothing to do with Judaism. There were two religions allowed in the Roman empire. The first one was the one that was accepted by the emperor. The second one was Judaism. Or maybe I should say the Romans tolerated Judaism. But the creation of a new religion inside the Roman Empire was going to receive persecution. In fact, for the first 300 years of Christianity, persecutors targeted those who believed in Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Savior. If you became a believer in Christ, then adversity was something that you dealt with daily.
That’s the backdrop of this section of the letter. The documentation shows that many followers who faced adversity caused by the Roman government left the faith. In the Near East, changing your religion was a big deal. Of course, today that’s not a problem and nobody really cares about it, but in St. Paul’s day it was a big deal. If you lived in a village or small city, almost everybody was a kissing cousin. So if a person followed Jesus Christ and became a Christian you might have had the entire village attempting to come to what they thought was your rescue and bring you back into the fold of the religion of the town, which of course was the Roman religion or Judaism.
Being a Christian in those first 300 years was not a simple task. We should never forget how much adversity our earliest brothers and sisters went through to bring us the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think too many people just either don’t know about this or have chosen just to ignore it. Bloodshed formed the foundation of Christianity for our earliest brothers and sisters. Christians did not cause the bleeding, the Romans did. Actually, in certain parts of the world, people are so strongly opposed to Christianity that they could kill missionaries or even believers in those countries.
St. Paul was telling the people of the church back then and now that there may be adversities because you believe in Jesus Christ. In his day, that adversity ended up being death, and not in a beautiful way. Today, in the United States, the adversity is not as significant, and you may not be put to death, but friends and even relatives may socially isolate you.
I was a non-practicing Jew until I was 35 years old, when I came to know Jesus and understood him as Lord and Savior. To me, it was a choice, and no one should’ve cared about it but me. However, once the family found out, I got funny looks, and I didn’t see them as much as I used to. Then, when I was called by the Lord Jesus to go into ordained ministry and started my seminary career, there were several friends of my lovely bride and me who decided they did not want to know from us anymore. That doesn’t sound like a major adversity at first and I’m sure it doesn’t compare to being killed for knowing Jesus. However, being shunned from a community can feel like that.
My guess is that every one of you sitting here has had an adversity of some sort. If you claim it has never happened to you, then you really need to revisit the history of your life and carefully examine it. There are a lot of things that we don’t consider adversities that are, and these are things you need to overcome. An adversity that I had as a child growing up was that I did not want to be a laborer when it came time for me to get a job as an adult. I’m not built to lift heavy objects and do manual labor. I also noticed that my father worked three jobs because my mother craved solid gold jewelry. He would leave the house by 5:00 AM returning home around 10:00 pm because he worked a full-time job followed by a part-time job. He even worked on Saturdays. The only day off he had was Sunday. He had adversity being from his wife, my mother. That adversity got transferred onto my brother, sister, and me in many ways that I don’t have time to discuss here.
I turned that adversity around and became determined that I was going to go to college, and I was going to get some kind of professional job. At first, I wanted to go into medicine and unfortunately that did not work out but I learned I was fantastic with computers and computer programming and went into that is my first career before switching careers to become an ordained minister and missionary for Jesus Christ. I’m telling you this part of my story for you to think about adversities that you may have had that you didn’t even recognize as adversities.
What I have learned is that my will and desire to overcome all adversities that were thrown at me made me a stronger person and, in every case, allowed me to do and experience things I might never have had the opportunity. If anyone tells you that going into ordained ministry in the United Methodist Church is a simple thing, then they are fooling you. I think that they intentionally create adversities at the seminary level and through the ordination process to see if you really have the muster to make it through.
I know that might sound a little crazy to you, but that’s the way it is done. Perhaps the church could view that process as an opportunity to weed out those people who don't have a true calling. An interesting idea, but unfortunately for those of us who made it through, it was not a fun experience. I know one person who was rejected for ordination because his exam team did not like his smile. True story!
So, what this all comes down to is how are you going to react when adversity smacks you in the face. Again, my guess is that every one of you who is listening to this or reading this message knows a time when they hit adversity of some sort. What we can learn from the Corinthian story and hopefully you see by my example that you have a choice. Choice number one is to fold to the adversity and let it win. Your second choice is the fight it with all your might and if you bring the power of God into it, you’re going to win.
Now the God solution might take some time. Do not expect the adversity to disappear instantly because you prayed to God and said, "God, please help me get out of this situation." It might take some time and it might take some thinking on your part in order to make it happen. But if you have the desire to overcome it, you can always overcome adversity. It’s really up to every one of us to decide what we're going to do when that adversity strikes.
Be aware that sometimes it takes time for a person to react to an adverse situation. For example, the death of a loved one can cause pain-and-suffering for quite some time and may even be with you the rest of your life, then the question becomes, so what are you going to do with it? Pain is an adversity that some of us have to deal with in our entire lives. So, if that is your situation, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to give into it or conquer it?
One last thing about adversity is that it is Satan’s tool. All you must do is read the book of Job and see how Satan could throw everything at him, including the kitchen sink, and yet Job stayed loyal to God and continue to survive. At the end of the Job story, since he won against all the adversity that he faced in his life, God restored him. God gave Job back his health, his wealth, and a new family. If you feel like everything is lost, God could do the same thing for you. Remember when you think everything is going that badly in your life, no matter what adversity you are facing. If you place your life in the hands of Jesus Christ, you will survive.
That’s the message in a nutshell that Paul was trying to tell the people of Corinth. Take note that by placing your life into God’s hands and letting the Holy Spirit lead, you will get out of whatever adversity you’re dealing with. It may take some time. It makes take some change in your lifestyle. But remember. As little David knew when he went up against the 9 foot Goliath that with God, anything is possible.
