More Than We Can Handle? - 1st Corinthians 10:6-13


How many of you like pop quizzes?

Not too many, huh?  Let me try a different approach.

How many of you like trivia?

I know it is not all of you, but it is significantly more than like pop quizzes.  So here is your trivia test.  I need to know whether this quote is from the Bible or somewhere else.  If it is from somewhere else, where?  If it is from the Bible, where?

“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”  Jeremiah 8:20

“Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.” Langston Hughes

“Whatever life holds in store for me, I will not forget these words: ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’” Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) – Spiderman

“Casting the lot puts an end to disputes between powerful contenders.” Proverbs 18:18

“…the badgers are a people without power, yet they make their homes in the rocks…”  Proverbs 30:26

“Tell me something, my friend.  You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?”  The Joker (Jack Nicholson) Batman (1989)

“Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance…” Jeremiah 31:13

“Sometimes the devil allows people to live a life free of trouble because he doesn't want them turning to God.” Mina and Mark’s mother in God’s Not Dead

“God helps those who help themselves.” Benjamin Franklin

“God won’t give us more than we can bear.”

Sometimes we hear it or read it as, “God won’t give us more than we can handle.”

How many of you have heard that before?  Who said it?  Lots of people—but not the Bible. 

Most of the time when we hear someone say, “I know that God’s not going to give me any more than I can bear” or “Remember, God won’t give you more than you can handle?” it is said when everything in the world seems to be coming down on a person—my light bill is due, the car breaks down, little Johnny is sick, my wife just got laid off of work, and I spilt coffee on my laptop keyboard in the middle of typing this sermon.  If the Bible does not say that “God won’t give us more than we can bear or handle, does that mean that God is going to piling so many burdens on us until we do break?  Is God trying to cause us to collapse under the weight of so many things coming on us?  Does He want us to have a breakdown, or die?  No!  God’s Word makes it clear that is not the case and that God will help us when we are feeling overwhelmed.  Scriptures do tell us to “Cast your burden upon the Lord and he will sustain you…” (Psalm 55:22) and “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28).  We are to realize and remember that God is the source of our rescue when every second of every day seems like a Monday.

So if the Bible does not say, “God won’t give us more than we can bear,” then what does it say?  What the Bible actually says, we read just moments ago, is, “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone.  God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”  Some folks have tried to tell me that it is saying the same thing.  However, I think there is a big difference between saying that “God is not going to put so many burdens in our lives that it will break us,” and saying that “God is not going to allow us to be tested or tempted beyond what we can endure, and that when we are tested or tempted, God is always going to provide us with a way out.”  It is the difference between a mean, cruel god and a loving God who provides for those with whom He has entered into covenant relationship.

James tells us, “No one, when tempted, should say, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.”[i]

So if God does not cause the struggles to come upon us, where do they come from?  Job offers us the strong possibility of an answer.  We have a picture of Satan, the Adversary, wandering the earth and coming before the throne of God.  The Adversary suggests that the only reason Job is loyal to God is that Job is living the good life.  God allows Job to be tested by Satan, with the provision that Job’s life not be taken from him.  The testing and temptation for Job to turn his back on God does not come from God, but from the Adversary…and later, even, from Job’s wife and friends, but not God.  God allows it, but sets the limits from within which the tempter can operate…giving credence to God not allowing the tempting/testing to go beyond what we can endure.

The temptations and trials that we endure may come in the forms of hardships or suffering that we face.  These are the diseases, injuries, and disasters that come into our lives…cancer, heart disease, blindness, broken limbs, strokes, tornados, earthquakes, and all the like.

They may come in the form of the lure to indulge in actions or behaviors that are incompatible with a Christ-centered life.  Pornography, non-marital sexual relations, prejudice, gossip, drug use, gambling, stealing, lying, and the list could go on and on.

They may come with the suggestion to dismiss God and his saving work through Jesus Christ.  The idea that God is not relevant to our lives, that God is non-existent, that Christ is just one of a myriad of ways to God, that “being good” or doing “good works” will get is into heaven, or life in the body of Christ is not essential to following Jesus.

Where do these tests and temptations come from?  Ultimately they come from Satan, from the Adversary, from the Tempter, from the one who seeks to have us place himself, our even ourselves, at the center of our lives and world rather than God.  All temptation and testing that comes from him is an effort for us to doubt that God loves and cares for us and that God should be at the forefront of all that we say and do and think.

Some of us are going to say, I’ve never seen Satan…there have been no little men in a red suit with a pointed tail and carrying a pitchfork in my life.  Biblically we read Satan described as disguised as an angel of light[ii]…someone/something attractive.  The tempter comes as an attractive voice in the back of our heads, a so-called friend, a “loving family member,” or a popular/public figure.  The list could go on and on of times we hear the voice of Satan in those around us trying to drown out the Voice of God.  Times are going to come where that voice is so loud, that temptation so strong, that we feel like we just can’t help but give in…

Yet God says, in a voice we need to hear above all the others when temptations come our way, “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

So where do we find this strength from God, where do we find the divine escape route to overcome the temptations that continuously come before us?  God tells us, through Paul, right here.  We don’t see it in the English, but the Greek gives us a strong clue…looking at the verse, what we don’t see is that the word translated “you” in English, is plural…to put it from Greek into Southern, it would read, “No testing has overtaken y’all that is not common to everyone.  God is faithful, and he will not let y’all be tested beyond y’all’s strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that y’all may be able to endure it.”

The key to finding the strength to overcoming and resisting temptation is to be part of God’s community of faith…it is here, with our brothers and sisters, that God gives us the ability to overcome temptation.  Here, God puts us alongside others who can support and encourage us when the temptation comes to us…those we can reach out to and say, “I need help,” “I need guidance,” or “I need support.”  And we can find it here because whatever temptation we are facing, those around us have faced it too—“no temptation has come that is not common to everyone.”  Folks here can help us find the strength that God provided them with to escape the same thing we are facing.

Beyond this guidance to the Corinthians, we can turn to Hebrews and find more encouragement, “Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”[iii]

More than anything else, Paul’s words that “no testing has overtaken us that is not common to everyone” is echoed in the words of Hebrews and tells us that those who have had to face and overcome temptations include our Savior, Jesus Christ.  He knows what it is like to be tempted…He had to face them all Himself…and overcame each, and because of that, we know that we can go to Him and seek relief, and find it…in His words and here, in His Body.

Brothers and sisters, we will never have more that we can handle…because God will provide us with more help, more relief, more escape, than we can ever hope for, with the assurance than nothing we face…”neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[iv]

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.



[i] James 1:13
[ii] 2nd Corinthians 11:14
[iii] Hebrews 4:14-16
[iv][iv] Romans 8:38-39

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