1. Problems Are For Losers

By Thomas M. Parsons

What Christian Religion Teaches
God is a God of love. He wants only the best for His children. When we live according to His rules, He blesses us by preventing problems. The presence of problems in a Christian’s life is evidence we are not living by His rules.

For example, the Bible says we should not commit adultery. Those who obey do not get sexually transmitted diseases, do not give birth to unwanted children, and do not get abortions.

Even on lesser moral issues, the principle still stands. Christians who follow God’s financial rules never experience financial problems. Christians who are loyal to their local church never experience problems relating to others within the church. Christians who do not smoke do not get lung cancer, and Christians who do not drink alcohol do not cause fatal auto accidents.

If a Christian does experience any of these things, it is because he or she has failed to obey a rule of God. The Christian who experiences financial problems must have failed to follow God’s rules. The Christian who gets lung cancer must have failed to follow God’s rules. If something goes wrong in a Christian’s life it must be because that person failed.

Because God blesses those who obey Him, we can safely say that problems are for losers.

What the Bible Actually Says
One of the problems with the view expressed in the left column and in the headline above is that it is actually based on a doctrine the Bible thoroughly condemns. It is the doctrine of legalism.

This is not to say that there is not blessing for a believer in living a lifestyle that is pleasing to God. That God does bless those who live godly is also a rich Bible truth.

But thinking that God is obligated to do something for me because I have done something for Him is arrogant humanism.

In this second letter of Paul to the Corinthian believers, Paul addresses the false theology that permeated the church then as it does now. After giving his customary warm greeting, Paul dives right into the problem he sees at Corinth.

He talks about God “who comforts us in all our troubles,” and about believers sharing “abundantly in the sufferings of Christ.” He says “if we are distressed, it is for your comfort.” The comfort Paul can give to the Corinthians is that which “produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.

Paul’s point is that God allows His children to suffer and to experience problems for many reasons, one of which is so that they can comfort each other in challenging situations.

Paul did not want these believers to be ignorant about the troubles he experienced while ministering in the Roman province of Asia. He says things got so bad, he was so far under the pressures of the ministry, he was so far beyond his ability to endure that he even despaired of life, thinking that God had already sentenced him to death anyway. So, what rule of God did Paul disobey to get himself in such dire straights? How had the Apostle failed God that the Lord thought it necessary to put him in such sufferings?

Paul did not think of his problems as punishments from God. Instead he said, “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raised the dead.” (II Cor 1:9).

What released Paul from his despair was his refocusing of his vision from his problems to focusing on Christ instead. This is always the way it works. He relied on two things; first, the promise of God to continue to deliver him, and second, the prayers of God’s people on his behalf.

God had a purpose in bringing problems into the life of the world’s greatest teacher, preacher, evangelist servant of God. God’s purposes are manifold, and never fully known. But one purpose God had for Paul’s problems was the fact that

Sep 6 - Problems Are For Losers 2 Cor 1:1-2:4
Sep 13 - The Old Ways Are Better 2 Cor 2:5-3:18
Sep 20 - Pie-In-The-Sky Religion Won’t Cut It 2 Cor 4:1-5:10
Sep 27 - I Have To Do It Myself 2 Cor 5:11-6:2
Oct 4 - God Doesn’t Want Me To Suffer 2 Cor 6:3-7:1
Oct 11 - Don’t Judge Me 2 Cor 7:2-16
Oct 18 - I Don’t Have Enough To Give It Away 2 Cor 8:1-9:5
Oct 25 - God Gave It To Me For Me 2 Cor 9:6-15
Nov 1 - I Take Pride in Myself 2 Cor 10:1-18
Nov 8 - You’re Okay, I’m Okay 2 Cor 11:1-15
Nov 15 - My Heritage Is Important 2 Cor 11:16-12:10
Nov 22 - Don’t Make a Fool of Yourself 2 Cor 12:11-21
Nov 29 - Don’t Tell Me What Not to Do 2 Cor 13:1-14
Classes taught by Tom Parsons at Maranatha Baptist church in Columbus, Ohio Sunday mornings at 9:30 am.

enduring those problems with God’s help enabled Paul to comfort others who were going through similar experiences.

"You don’t know what I’m going through,” someone who is in the throes of great problems might say to me. And I may not know exactly what the person is going through because I have not experienced the exact same problem in my life. However, I have experienced problems, and I have seen God work in my situations. Therefore I am able to “comfort those in any trouble with the comfort” I myself have received from God.

But there is more. It is not simply that God wants us to learn how to comfort each other. There are other reasons why God wants us to endure difficulties in life.

Paul loved the Corinthian believers. He and Silas and Timothy had gone to Corinth at great personal expense in order to proclaim the true Gospel of Jesus Christ to them. Many had believed. A local church was formed. Believers banded together in order to worship Christ and serve Him in one of the ancient world’s most wicked of cities. They did this, not “relying on worldly wisdom but on God’s grace.” It was the only way they could have ministered to the Corinthians, or to anyone for that matter.

But Paul has been away from Corinth and from the church for some time now. He has had to write a letter (I Corinthians) and deal with some rather challenging issues that he heard the believers there were facing. And some of it, he knew, was due to their own sin.

He wanted to come and visit the church again. In fact, he says he wanted to visit them twice, once as he traveled out to Macedonia and then again on his return trip to Judea. But he was not able to make the trip. There was a disparity between Paul’s desire and commitment to visit the Corinthians, and his ability and opportunity to do so.

Where his promise was concerned, the fulfilment was a matter of “Yes,” or “No.” It turned out to be “No.” But where God’s promises are concerned, it is always “Yes.” “No matter how many promises God has made,” Paul says, “they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.”

Am I a loser? Well, yes, I am. Am I a loser because I have problems? No. Never. I am a loser because I am a sinner living in a broken world.

But in Christ, I am a winner. I win because He has promised to save me from the penalty for my sin through faith in Him. I win because He has promised to help me through the problems I face in this world. I win because He desires to use my sufferings and His involvement in my sufferings to encourage others to trust Him as well. I am a winner because where the promises of God are concerned, there is never a question about whether He will keep His promise or not. It is not “Yes,” or “No.” It is not “Maybe,” or “Maybe not.”

With God it is always “Yes.” God will always keep His promise to me. Paul was not able to keep his promise to visit the Corinthians. But God kept His promise to use Paul. He still is using Paul today.

NEXT: THE OLD WAYS ARE BETTER