How To Deal with Adversity 1 Cor. 16:9 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

This sermon is on how to deal with adversity.  When you are where God wants you to be, you will often face adversity; there will be struggles.  And there are practical ways to deal with this adversity. If you neglect these practical principles you will fail no matter how much you pray, read your Bible and fast.  You meet adversity with:

Steadfastness – 1 Cor 15:58 – you cannot be lazy – you must work, work, work – in 1 Cor 16:10, Paul said of Timothy that “he worketh the work of the Lord.”

Strength – Phil 4:13; Eph 6:10 – the strength to persevere indeed comes from the Lord but it also comes when you have expended your strength – the Lord’s strength is made perfect in your weakness. By expending your strength against the adversity, you become stronger.

Sacrifice – Rom 12:1-2 – Jesus Christ gave his all – Paul gave his all – and you must give your all – you must take up your cross and deny yourself – you must put all you have into the work.

Contentment – 1 Tim 6:6; Phil 4:11-12 – in poor countries, the people who have nothing are content – in the United States we have everything and we complain because we don’t have more – you need to learn to rejoice in the midst of adversity and not just when the adversity lifts – often it never lifts.

Concentration – Matt 6:34 – you must concentrate on the task at hand and not let adversity take you off course – Jesus came to die and he never lost sight of that – a good soldier does not get entangled with the affairs of this life [2 Tim 2:4] – don’t stop to consider your plight, or to pity your lot in life, or to fuss about the adversity or else you will quit.

Balance – Prov 11:1 – you can get so loaded with your work that you exhaust yourself – Jesus told the disciples to “come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile” – so, while you must work and work hard and while you must sacrifice all, you need to remember that you must recover from time to time in order to complete the full course that the Lord has for you.

Faithfulness – Acts 20:24; Lk 17:5-10; 2 Tim 4:7 – you must be faithful to the Lord to stay with your work until all the work God called you to do is finished – Paul kept the faith and finished his course – he was talking about a faith with its sleeves rolled up!!

Conclusion: When you hit adversity in your life, if you will meet it with these seven principles, your work will get done; you’ll still be standing when the adversity has passed.