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.
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