| Overcoming
Adversity(Understanding Why)Introduction:I. All of us experience problems
sometimes (2 Cor. 5:1-4). I have often said sometimes it seems as if we are
on top of the world, and sometimes it seems as if the world is on top of us.
In this we all share a common lot. However, while we all share the fate of
suffering adversity from time to time, not everyone responds to adversity the
same way. Some throw in the towel and quit. Some quit Christianity, others
quit on their families, while some just quit life itself. Then there are some
who allow the adversities of life to make them stronger and better. Some
become better Christians, others becomes better fathers, while others just
become better people in general. The question is how do you respond to
adversity? This is an important question because if we respond poorly, if we
respond in a way that is contrary to the will of God, a home in heaven can be
what we are sacrificing. So, in this series of lessons this week, we are
going to be discussing, “Overcoming Adversity.” The first step is
understanding something about why we suffer adversity in the first place,
especially as Christians. Shouldn’t we be shielded from adversity by God.
After all, He is our Father and we are His children so shouldn’t we expect
His divine protection? Many people of a religious persuasion think so. So, as
we begin this series of lessons, we want to talk a little bit about why it is
that we suffer adversity from time to time.II. Now, one way to understand why
we sometimes suffer, is to be aware of the various sources of adversity. So
in this lesson we are going to be looking at three different sources of
adversity.Lesson:I. Some
Adversity Comes by Chance.God has created a world that is governed by natural
laws. We live in a world of cause and effect, action and reaction, and
reaping and sowing. If we somehow violate these laws the consequences are
often grave and suffering is experienced. It is not because we are evil and have
sinned. It is not because we are good. In fact, in many of these situations,
there is no moral significance at all. For example, a three year old boy
carelessly rides his tricycle into the street and gets hit by a car. Who
sinned? Someone says, it must be God punishing the boy’s parent. No, that’s
nonsense. The accident happened because the child lost control of the
tricycle and speed and momentum carried him into the street. It wasn’t an act
of God. It wasn’t Satan’s work. It was simply an accident, and the fact that
the boy rode into the street at the exact time that a car was coming, was
nothing more than chance. This is a
conceptthat some religious people cannot grasp, but it’s scriptural. Not everything thatOvercoming Adversity:
Understanding Why
happens to you is God’s direct will. Not everything that happens is a
part of God’s master plan for your life. Some things happen by chance.I once
performed a funeral for an eighteen year old young man who I had baptized
just a week previously. He had been in a fatal car accident and the family
was devastated. Was it God’s will that their son died? No! It was a
combination of mere chance and a natural law being broken, helped this time
by sin which we’ll talk more about a bit latter, but the point is, it wasn’t
God’s direct will. It was the combination of sin and chance, that is, that he
was on the same road as a drunk driver at exactly the wrong time. The result
was a whole lot of suffering. Now does the Bible really teach that some
things happen by mere chance? Yes!Eccl 9:11I again saw under the sun that the
race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither
is bread to the wise nor wealth to the discerning nor favor to menof ability;
for time and chance overtake them all.Luke 10:3131 “And by chance a priest
was going down on that road, and when |
