Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 123 | Unbearable?

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

Will God place Christians in a situation that's beyond what they can bear?

Hello, hello, happy Monday. Welcome to Relatable. I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. So today we're going to talk about a question that I got on Instagram in my Instagram messages, asking if God will give us more than we can bear. Now, if you are a Christian, you've probably heard this debated before, or at least you've heard this phrase, that God will not give you more than you can bear, that whatever you face is something that you can handle because God brought it into your life. Now, there have been a lot of people who have just refuted this, who have said, no, that's not true. God will definitely give you more than you can bear. And that's just a fact of life, that there are always going to be things that you cannot bear, but he's going to help you through

it. Now, I want to say that I agree with both. I agree with both that God will not give you more than you can bear, but I am going to add an addition onto that. I'm going to add a caveat to that, or I'm just going to change one word to make this statement true. God will not give a Christian more than she can bear. God will not give a Christian more than she can bear because the Christian by nature is filled with the Holy Spirit who, by the nature of being God, can bear absolutely anything. So because the Christian by nature is filled with the Holy Spirit, who by nature is God and can therefore bear anything, the Christian can also bear anything. This does not mean that everything is going to turn out as planned. This does not mean that you are going to succeed at everything at which you wish to succeed.

This does not mean that you will always win. This does not mean that you'll always have it easier or that you'll always get vindication against that person that did something bad to you. it doesn't mean that you will be physically, tangibly rewarded for your struggle in this life. It just means that you can bear it, that you can live through this, whatever the struggle, whatever the affliction is without forsaking your faith. That even to the point of death, in the face of torture, in the face of persecution, in the face of martyrdom, that you can endure this with the strength of Christ, which every Christian has. This is one of the rare times when Philippians 413 is completely appropriate and actually used in the right way, that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

The text actually says through him who strengthens me, but it is through Christ who strengthens me. This verse, we know if you've been in the church for any amount of time, you know that this verse is used and abused in our culture. It has been for decades to mean like winning a soccer game or getting a promotion or accomplishing things. things that are not promised to us by scripture. But if we back up from this verse and we actually look at the context, which we know from our reading the Bible episode is always important when we're reading scripture, when we look at the context of the verse, we can see exactly what all things actually means. And it doesn't mean winning a soccer game or doing the things that you just want to do in this life. So here's the second half of verse 11 and verse 12 in Philippians 4. For I, this is Paul speaking,

God speaking through Paul. This is Paul writing for, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance, and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. So let's just pause for a second and look at that first phrase. The whole thing is stunning when you really think about it in all the anxiety. anxiety and the discontent that we have in this life. But this first phrase, I have learned in whatever

situation I am to be content, whatever situation, whatever situation, any in all situations, he is to be content, he says. You might think, Paul, you don't know what I'm going through. You don't know what's on my plate. Paul didn't live today. There's no way that he knows my, my stress. He doesn't know what I am going through right now. You have, No idea, all the stuff that I have to handle, all the things that refuse to fall into place. I cannot be content in this situation you might be thinking. This is the one situation that no one gets, that no one can relate to, not even God saw this coming, you might be thinking.

You might be thinking, okay, I promise that I'll be content once this happens or once this is taking care of or when I've reached this point. But right now, I can't be content. But let us look at the context of this. Paul is writing this letter to Philippi from prison. Okay, he's writing this from prison. This was written only a few years before he was actually martyred in Rome. And in the first chapter, he recognized that his death was probably imminent.

So here's chapter one of Philippians verses 20 through 21. As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death for to me, he said. to live is Christ and to die is gain. So when Paul says in chapter four of Philippians, to be content in all things, when Paul says that he can do and endure all things through Christ who strengthens him, he is literally talking about the worst possible situation that if I were to guess, I would say that you probably haven't been through. He's talking about the worst possible

situation that a human being could be put in, which is facing torment, which is facing imprisonment, and execution, particularly for his faith and for sharing the gospel. So even in this dank cell of prison, Paul says that he is content in all things. He says in verses 11 through 12, in every circumstance, I have learned the secret. I love that. It's the secret. It's the trick. It's the one ingredient that he knows will help him and help him endure when he faces either plenty or hunger when he faces abundance or need, and that is Christ. I can do all things, he says, through him who strengthens me. Why? Because Paul views his life through the lens of the eternal rather than the temporal. Life to him, he says, is sharing the gospel. When he says,

for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain, he says life to him is sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, but death to him is being with Christ. That's it. That's his purpose. So whether he dies or whether he lives, his purpose and his being and his joy and his contentment is Christ. And Christ does not change. He's the same yesterday, today, today, and forever. So if you've got your contentment and your peace and your endurance based on that, you're going to be okay whether you live or die. So whether in life or in death, Paul's goal, he is saying his prize, his focus is on Jesus Christ. And that is why he has the strength to endure all things, plenty and hunger, abundance, and need. So that is why he can face certain death with the assurance that it's all going to be okay.

And that he has no reason to despair. He has no reason for a discontent. And the same is true for us. We may be uncomfortable. We may be in anguish. But we are content as Christians with the peace of Christ knowing that he has equipped us to endure this very thing. Romans 135 through 39 says this. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written, for your sake, we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquers through him who loved us. For I am sure that 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. So did you hear that? Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. There is not a single thing that we endure in this life that can actually separate us from the love of Christ. The love of Christ, as we see also in Philippians, is the source of the Christian strength. It is the source of our peace that Jesus loved us so much that he chose to die for us, to die for his chosen ones to take us and to call us his own while we were yet his enemies, while we were yet sinners. That is the strength that we need to endure what is set before us. It is that truth that studies us, that keep us anchored among life's waves. So how powerful is this love of Christ?

How grand is this love of Christ that we draw our strength from? Ephesians 3 says it is so deep that it actually surpasses knowledge. Like we don't even get it. Like our finite minds can't even sit down and think, okay, how much does Christ love us? Like, I can sit down and think about how much my husband loves me or how much I love my husband. And yes, that love can be overwhelming or I can think about how much I love my daughter that I'm about to give birth to. And that is an amazing, sacrificial, unconditional kind of love. But I can wrap my mind around it. I can look tangibly at all the ways that my husband loves me and I can understand what that looks like. But in Ephesians 3 that we're about to read, it says that we can't even comprehend it. We cannot even sit down and think about,

wow, God loves me and even be able to comprehend a fraction of what that actually means. Ephesians 3, 14 through 21 says this, for this reason, this is Paul writing to the church at Ephesus, for this reason, I bow my knees before the father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. I love that line, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through His spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

And then he goes on to say, of course, this wonderful line. Now to him, that's to God, who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations forever and ever, amen. So time and again throughout the epistles, particularly here in this passage in Ephesians, we see Jesus' love intertwined with the idea of power,

with the idea of motivation, with endurance, with perseverance. It is the aim that we seek as well as the strength to seek. It is the prize before us that we chase after and the force behind us actually pushing us forward. Jesus' love is not just salvation, though it is that. It's not just comfort, though it is that. It's not just peace, though it is that. It is also power. 2 Corinthians 514 says,

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died. For the love of Christ controls us. Why? Why? Because we know the gospel. Because we know that he died for us, and therefore we've died to ourselves. The love of Christ controls us, controls us. It takes hold of our minds and our bodies and defines our every move. Other translations say that the love of Christ compels us, which is kind of the same thing. It moves us forward. It is the driving force behind all that we do. So the Bible is clear. Christians can endure all things. Why? Because the love of Jesus Christ and the grace that God,

has shown us by giving us this love. And in this love and grace, he has invited us to share in his suffering so that we may also share in his glory, as Romans 8 says. Romans 8 16 through 18. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided, we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified in him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time, are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. That means, and this is just crazy, but comforting for the Christian to know that our suffering was planned, this thing that we feel like is unbearable, the struggle that we have, or this

loss that we're dealing with, this rejection that we're facing, it was actually planned. God is sovereign over that. It is not a detour away from God's purpose, but is in itself a part of God's purpose. So hard times, this thing that we are bearing is not a signal of God. God's absence or evidence of his inability to help you. They are a predestined part of the believer's life that God is using intentionally, purposely, and specifically for your good and for his glory. 2 Corinthians 417 says,

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. As we talked about in the biblical suffering episode, and I would encourage you to go back and listen to the biblical suffering episode, The things that you are going through are not just happening to you. They're not just happening. They're not just coincidental. They are, if you are a Christian preparing something for you, that is a gracious comfort

that Christians alone get to take part in, that it is preparing something for us eternally, not just in this life necessarily, but in the next life, definitely. It's doing something. It's not just bad luck. It's not just misfortune. And the life of misfortune, I think that's how I meant to say that. in the life of the believer, all that you endure is doing something. It is preparing something eternal. So it is worth it. That verse also says that our affliction, no matter what it is on this

earth, is light and momentary. It's light and momentary compared to the glory that we're going to have. That means that you can bear it as a Christian. You can. No matter what it is, it is doable for you. It is doable. It is go throughable. You are able to withstand it without, compromising your faith. You are able to do the thing that is before you without doubting God's power and purpose. You are able to hold fast because of the love of Christ that has been given to you that has been assured in you by the presence of the Holy Spirit. One of my favorite verses of all time is Joshua 238, which says, but you shall cling to the Lord your God just as you have done to this day. Another version says, but you are to hold fast to the Lord your God as you have until

now. You are to cling to him. You are to hold fast to him. That is your responsibility in the midst of tumult. That is the responsibility in the midst of what you feel is an unbearable child to hold fast to the Lord who has promised to strengthen you. This means that we are to tether ourselves to the promises of God, the assurance of the hope of glory, of the love of Jesus Christ, which enables us to indeed bear all things. God also promises to equip us, to ready us, to prepare us for all that we face in this life. He knows that we will suffer. He planned it. He knows that we will go through hardship.

He purposed it. He knows that we will face persecution. He prophesied that. He knows that we will receive unfair criticism. That lies will be spread about us, that we will face rejection and imprisonment and torture and martyrdom. And he was gracious enough to give us the life. love of Christ to get us through it, to be our prize and to be our power. And that at the end of it, we get to enjoy and share in his glory. He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to do that.

We didn't earn that. We don't have any merit that says we deserve to take a part in that glory because we're really good, because we're really strong, because we're really righteous. He reconciled us to himself while we were yet sinners, while we were his enemies, while as Ephesians too, we were dead in our sin. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1 says. 2 Corinthians 9 8 says, and God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. In case you wondered if your circumstance is covered by the word of God and his promises to sustain you, let me just read that again, because I'm pretty sure that this makes this clear. And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having

all sufficiency in all things, at all times, you may be able to abound in every good work. Sufficiently, all, every. I don't think that you need to doubt whether or not God has you, whether or not you as a Christian can bear this. You can. He does not offer any confusion about that. He offers absolute clarity and how gracious of him to do that, to know that we're going to go through things that our faith is going to be tested, that Satan, just like he did

the Garden of Eden is going to say, but did God really say Satan, just as he did to Jesus in the wilderness, is going to twist God's word when we are struggling, when we are suffering, when we are facing metaphorical or literal hunger and thirst and torment, that Satan is going to twist God's word to make us believe that God is not faithful. But because God is able to make all grace abound to you, in all sufficiency and all things, at all times, we may abound in every good work, we have the strength through Christ to persevere in that, to say, no, I don't have to give up my faith. I don't have to compromise here. God has equipped me.

Second Corinthians 12, 9 through 10, you're probably familiar with this passage. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness. So his power is sanctified in our weakness, not in our strength, but our weakness. Therefore, I, Paul is saying, therefore I will boast all the more glad. of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, with insults, with hardships, with persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. There is no other religion that offers strength for your weakness,

that offer strength for your vulnerability. When you are completely inept, when you are completely inadequate, when you are completely incompetent and unqualified, Christ says, I'm enough for you. And this is precisely why, as we've talked about before, there's a podcast episode titled, You Are Not Enough. That's precisely why the lie that you are enough is so damaging and why Christians shouldn't buy into it. Why we should not take comfort in this myth that you are enough because the Bible is completely clear that we are not, that we are weak, that we are susceptible to temptation, that if left to our own devices, we're not going to endure. We are going to completely give up. We're going to completely surrender to Satan. We're going to be completely deceived. The Bible says,

no, you are weak, but when you are weak, God is strong. When you are faithless, God is faithful. He has the ability to uphold you and you rejoice in your weakness, knowing that the power of Christ in your weakness is going to rest upon you. So we rejoice in the liberation of knowing that we're not enough. And we reject the myth of self-sufficiency and realize that Christ died so that we could be insufficient and he could be sufficient on our behalf. Again, in this context of verse 10 in 2 Corinthians 12, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. We see Paul saying that he is content.

He is okay. He's at peace. He's steady, even in the midst of the worst possible circumstances. He's fine. He knows it's going to be all right. This stuff he knows is light and it's momentary compared to the glory that he's going to experience one day. to live for him is to share Christ, he knows, to die with him or to die for him is to be with Christ.

So he knows that nothing can separate him from the love of Christ. And he knows that it is the love of Christ that controls, that compels, and that comforts him. And that is true for us as well. I get so many questions every week about how do I endure the insults and the persecution that I feel like I'm getting particularly in this conversation about abortion. or I believe in biblical marriage or I believe that the Bible is the word of God. I am a traditional Christian and how do I confront these people who say that I'm being hateful, who say that I'm a bigot?

Well, Paul says that he has dealt with a lot of this and he says in his weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, and persecutions and in calamities, he's okay, that he's content in this because he knows in that weakness that he is strong. We are going to be facing, I would say, an increase of persecution in our lifetimes and in our children's lifetimes. And what we can rejoice in is that God's got us and that we were made for such a time as this. A lot of people say, well, should I have children? Or should I, you know, keep my family line going because of all of the terrible things that are happening in the world? Shouldn't I be scared and shouldn't I spare my children from the horrible things that are going to happen to our country when God's wrath?

finally falls on us for killing our babies in the womb, whatever it is. But I truly believe that God places people on the timeline of eternity when they are supposed to be there. I believe that you were created for this generation at this point in history for a specific reason that we know that he plots where we are going to live. He plots how long we are going to live. He plots what our purpose is going to be Ephesians 2 says that God prepares the good works that we do beforehand that we would walk in them. He is sovereign over when you were born, over the circumstances in which you were born, and he has a purpose for you as a Christian to bring his kingdom here on earth and to share the gospel and to love those around you. And if you were made in this time, you were made for this time.

So as scary as it might be, and trust me, I look at the future of this country and I, get worried. I get anxious. I get scared. I think about what this is going to be like for my daughter and how hard it's going to be to teach my daughter things that I didn't even have to be taught growing up. Very basic things like the difference between men and women that right and wrong actually exist. All of these things that I'm just worried she is going to be indoctrinated with from an early age in a way that I don't agree with. I do worry about that. But then I remember that, wow, if I was put on earth at this scary of a time when up seems to be down, right, seems to be wrong, and vice versa, I know that God is going to equip me. I know that this is going to be something that

I can bear. He would not have put me here if he didn't have a purpose. Now, that's not to say that God needs us. God can accomplish anything that he wants to accomplish without any of us, but he chooses vessels to be used for his own glory, to share the gospel, to spread the honor of his name. And so when we start to think, I just can't bear the calamity and the depravity that's going on in this world. I just don't think that I can do it anymore. You can. He would not have put you here if he was not going to equip you to do the very thing that he is calling you to do. So we can look to God's word as comfort and as a reminder that the love of Christ that you have in you is the same love of Christ that Paul had in him that he was

able to face martyrdom with bravery, with courage, with the assurance that knowing that if he died, he was going to be with Christ. So what can man do to you? That's another question that Romans 8 asks. What can man do to you? It is God who justifies who is to condemn. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. That's the same assurance that we have today. It is the same Holy Spirit. It is the same love of Christ. It is the same death and resurrection power that we have in us to face the things that are before us. Yes, it is scary. And of course is scary, knowing that Christians are enduring persecution. Of course, it is scary,

knowing the things that are to come and being unsure of our future and seeing so many people, so many people thwart the word of God for their own selfish purposes. However, however, like I said, you were made for this time. And God, through the power of Christ,

is going to give us the tools to not only be able to get through it, but to make an impact for his kingdom with the power of the Holy Spirit. I often have to remind myself that in addition to all the passages that we just read, that assure us of struggle, that assure us of suffering, that assure us of persecution, and assure us that we can bear all of these things through Christ, I also have to remember that when Jesus said,

don't be anxious about anything or don't worry about tomorrow because God's got you, that nothing happens outside of God's sovereignty, that he knew what we were going through. I have to remember that God is not thrown off by either our personal situation or a political situation, our national situation. He's not thrown off by that. He does not get up off of his throne in fear that we've messed everything up. There is not a thing that happens in this universe outside of God's sovereign will. He is always in control. And so when Jesus told us not to worry, It's so easy for us to say, well, if you really knew what we were going through,

if Jesus really knew then what life today would look like, either my personal life or just in general on a larger scale, then there's no way he would have told us not to worry. We have every reason to worry, but he did because he's the God of the universe and he authored all things. He is suspended in the eternal now. He is not at all limited by time and space the way that we are. He is just as present today as he is a thousand years ago, as he is a thousand years ago, as he is a thousand years from now, he knows exactly when he's coming back and he has a perfectly

timed plan for all of it. And our hope that we cling to, the knowledge that we have, the assurance that we have is that Jesus is coming back, that all the things that we want to be made right are going to be made right. All the things that we want to be rectified are going to be rectified. Everything that we want vindicated is going to be vindicated. And our job is not to be anxious is not to worry, to not to wonder if we can bear this small thing or this big thing, no matter what it is, whether it's debt or death, whether you are dealing with some kind of serious rejection or whether you're just dealing with some kind of small criticism. Our job is not to worry or be anxious about these things that I'm talking to myself chiefly.

And that our job is to not be worried about these things, but to understand that God's got us. And our goal is to glorify Christ and to be obedient. to him, that's the only thing that he's called us to do and to trust that he is in absolute control. And that is why, yes, the Christian can bear all things, that there is absolutely nothing that comes into our life. As difficult as this is to recognize that we cannot bear, that we cannot bear without the power, with the power of Christ, that we don't have to compromise on our faith. We don't have to compromise on the gospel that we know for sure, that we can take whatever comes our way. So that's all I have today. I hope that you guys enjoy the podcast.

Of course, if you've got any questions at all, please always feel free to let me know. It's Allie at the conservative millennial blog.com. You can also message me on Instagram. I don't see all of your messages. I try to respond, but I don't always get to, but I love reading your messages. So feel free to keep sending them to me. And hopefully I will be able to get to your question. I'm more likely to see it if you email me though because I get fewer emails than I do Instagram messages. If you love this podcast, feel free to leave a five-star review on iTunes. It helps me out a lot. And I read them and they mean a lot to me. And the thing that I love most is when I see someone say, this is probably the most common thing that I see when I see someone say,

I feel like I'm talking to a friend. That's exactly what I want because, and it's not just some facade that I put up to make you feel a certain way. I truly feel like you guys are my friends. I feel like we are having a conversation and I feel like we are learning these things together. I had someone messaged me last week saying, oh, I didn't want to listen to this particular episode because I knew I would be convicted by what you said. And I'm like, girl, I am convicted every time I prepare my episodes, realizing, okay, this is something that I am having a hard time believing in. And I always try to be honest about that. I always try to say, okay, if this is something that I'm struggling with or this is something that I've doubted, then I always,

try to, you know, be up front and say, you know, I'm struggling with this too. So you guys know that I'm never coming from a place of perfection ever, but always coming from a place of learning and reliance on the word of God. That's what we always go back to is not my feelings and not my opinions, but reliance on the word of God. And you and I as friends, as I truly feel like we are, friends and family, we're learning this stuff together. I love when you guys message me and say, okay, you said this, but did you think about this? Or did you think about this passenger? What do you make of this? I am never offended by that. I'm never going to get defensive about that. If you bring in the word of God to talk about a particular theological subject, I'm always going to

welcome that. I don't care about being right. I care about God's word being right and us submitting to that together. So thank you again for all of those nice reviews and for saying that you feel like you're my friend because I feel like you're my friend too and I love doing this podcast with you guys. Be on the lookout for the next episode, which of course is on Wednesday where we cover something in the news or culture or something. If you have any suggestions for that, if there's something you really want me to cover, feel free to message me and let me know. I'll see you guys then.