God won't give you more than you can handle

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC 3/19/17

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^NRS  1 Corinthians 10:9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. ¹⁰ And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. ¹¹ These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. ¹² So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. ¹³ 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. ¹⁴ Therefore, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols.

Sitting around a campfire one evening an old, but wise Cherokee Indian Chief told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside our people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside of us all. One wolf is evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, false pride, superiority and ego.

The other wolf is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

The young grandson thought about it for a moment and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?” Grandfather looked at him with wisdom and love and said, “The one you feed.”

I am often in the middle of crisis where families are struggling. And I have heard this discussion hundreds if not thousands of times. “I know that you are going through a tough time right now. I know that you feel like there is no hope and that you cannot get through this. But you are going to make it because God never gives you more than you can handle.”

Adam Hamilton calls statements like this one and in fact the one last week that everything happens for a reason as “Half-truths.” The scripture that is cited in the one we heard today from 1^st Corinthians. The scripture tells us that we will not be tested beyond our strength. But all too often we confuse testing with life. In life we have many temptations. Temptations come not from God but from us. Have you ever been on a diet? When you are on a diet everyone around you is aware that you are struggling with the foods that you love that you need to stay away from. Yet, they constantly bombard you with offers that would pull you away from your diet whether they do so consciously or not. Of the temptations that bombard us every day on TV, the radio and the Internet sometimes overwhelm us into doing or buying something we don’t need. I am glad that I don’t have to go through the school experience today. Our young people are bombarded with more temptations that we can even imagine. With the advent of the internet and smart phones, that bombardment continues both day and night. But we can get through it right? God would not give us more than we can handle?

God never would put is in a place where we would purposely get harmed. God cannot sin and God would not create for us a place to sin. However we know that God gave us free will and because of that we humans have the ability to sin and to entice others into sin. It is why I believe the world around us is so focused on materialism and pleasure. Buy this or that thing and it will make you feel better, look better and be more desirable to others. That is what we hear every day. But does it really? Or does it really mean that someone would tempt you out of your money so that they might be wealthier? Probably so!

What the scripture is telling us as Paul writes to the church of Corinth is that God will test us but never beyond our endurance. Corinth was a great city of the Roman Empire full of Pagan sacrifice and sin. Most of the meats sold within the city were meats that had been worshipped over and then were available to be purchased. Many of the Christians were struggling with trying to be good Christians and yet living in a world full of temptation.  Sounds like our world today doesn’t it?  So how do we do it? How do we live lives worthy of the calling we have been called to in the midst of temptation all around us?

Jesus was tempted. It is a great story for Lent. He went into the wilderness where he was tempted by Satan. Satan called upon him in his hunger and his thirst, called upon Him in His weakened state hopeful that He would fall from grace. But Satan did not tempt Jesus in His weakness. No, Satan forced Jesus to struggle with His ego. Satan called upon Jesus to use His power to bring food for His hunger, to bring worship and praise from those who despised Him and to bring Jesus to His knees before Satan. Jesus found his strength in the faith of God alone. Jesus resisted these temptations not because of His own strength, ego and will but by trusting God. The scripture today is saying to us that no – the world will bring havoc and chaos into your world – and if we trust in God, God will help us handle whatever the world has sent our way.

Paul writes these wonderful words in Romans chapter eight;

^NRS  Romans 8:35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." ³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ 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.

But we will be tested. Abraham was tested with his firstborn son Isaac? Would Abraham be faithful to God when he was asked to do something so difficult and emotionally tugging? Would he bring his son to be sacrificed in order to be obeidient to God? There are so many emotional tugs in this story for those who are parents. What would you do? David stood before Goliath with his sling and stones. Would he prevail when he was out matched and out sized? Daniel stood before his king and was asked to deny his God and worship the King? Would he have the strength of faith to do so? Testing comes when God has something greater for us in mind. Testing comes when we have reached a threshold of faith and God needs us to go a little further, a little deeper and stand against the world in the will of God. We all get tested during our lifetimes. Mine came many years ago when I had to choose between a six figure income, prestige and materialism or following the faith life that God had in front of me to be in this place at this moment in time. Testing never will call you to sin. Testing will call you to endure what you can endure with God’s help.

Have you ever had a moment when you saw or heard something and that thing that had happened to you so many years ago came crashing back into your focus? Have you ever had something happen to you that you just felt that you could not endure or get through? A number of years ago I had the privilege to know a family that had a tragedy happen to them that could have broken them apart. But they endured! They endured by reaching out to folks who supported them in their grief, gave them strength to find answers where they could and then find a focus for their pain. That family is still facing their grief every year at the time of their loss. I see their anguish in their Facebook posts and their e-mails. But they found a way to trust God to see their way forward. And we can too! But in order to do so we need to let God in. Sometimes that means seeking professional assistance in our anguish. We all remember where we were on September 11^th, 2001! Yet, here we are facing the future unafraid because of our faith that God was present that day and is present here with us today.

God won’t give you more than you can handle but the world will. When the world does, God will be there to help lift us up if we will simply trust God. The world will tempt us to do things, buy things and go in directions that we should not go. But we must have faith and trust in the message that God is sending us. God will test us to the edge of our endurance and when we pass that test God will lead us into opportunities and challenges beyond our wildest imagination. Testing never asks us to sin! Temptation always does! Life is complicated, challenging and full of trial. As for me and my house, we will choose the Lord!