Today we conclude what has become an eight-part series on “Common Objects That Build Faith.” (It originally was a seven-part series, but I’ve added this last message.) As most of you know, we’ve used a common object each week to remind us of something unique about God or about how God works in our lives. At the end of the service you were handed that object to take with you as a reminder throughout the week.
Today you’ll be receiving a smooth stone. By nature, most stones are rough: they have sharp edges. However, when they’re tossed about by water they’re eventually worn smooth from bumping against each other and by the assault of sand and other hard particles.
The process can be duplicated by machines called rock tumblers. A hobbyist puts rough stones into a drum with some grinding grit. The drum is turned, and after several weeks of tumbling the rocks are smooth.
As you leave today you’ll be given a smooth stone. Keep it handy, and every time you see it let it remind you that God uses troubles to smooth our rough edges.
We all have rough edges! Not one of us is the person God has in mind for us to be. We can all become more like Christ and can do more for Him. We become more of who we should be and better able to do what we’re meant to do through the troubles we face — and by using them in a positive way.

Troubles Happen to Followers of Jesus
No one likes troubles; you’d have to be a masochist to enjoy them. No one in his right mind invites troubles into his life, but they come anyway. None of us is without troubles.
It’s important for us to remember that just because we’re serious about God and about being followers of His son Jesus Christ, it doesn’t mean that we’re going to have fewer troubles! If we follow God’s will we’ll be sinning less, and nothing causes trouble like sin. As we grow in our obedience to Jesus we’ll end up, shall we say, “shooting ourselves in the foot” less often; we’ll be our own worst enemies a little less often as time goes on. However, we do still sin, and this causes us troubles. We’re also still going to have troubles because of other people’s mistakes. There’s also the whole business of this being a fallen world which is full of troubles, including danger and disease.
There’s also the fact that when we decide to get serious about following the Lord we invite a whole new set of troubles, though we sometimes find it hard to accept that. Jesus Himself reminded us, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, . . .” (Matthew 5:11-12) The apostle Paul wrote to the young preacher Timothy, “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” (2 Timothy 3:12)
Whether it’s being given a hard time because of your faith in Christ, having to put up with our own sinfulness and the sinfulness of others, or living in a fallen world with dangers and disease, those of us who are followers of Jesus are going to have troubles. We must be prepared to stop ourselves from saying, “Is this the thanks I get for trying to follow Him?”
In the main Bible text we’re using today — the opening eleven verses of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian Christians — Paul wrote, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia.” (2 Corinthians 1:8) Paul had troubles, and so do we — and we always will while we’re here on earth. What can we do about it?

Troubles Can Bring Us Closer to Jesus
Little Johnny was asked by his Sunday school teacher, “Do you pray before you eat a meal, Johnny?”
Johnny replied, “I don’t have to. My mom’s a good cook.”
I guess as long as we have a good cook in the house we don’t find a need to pray over the food! Just this week they announced e. coli poisoning from spinach. We’d probably find it easier to pray for God’s blessing of our food if we were about to dive into a spinach salad this coming week! Troubles, or even the threat of them, drives us to God. If that’s what it takes, it’s good!
C.S. Lewis said that God whispers to us through our pleasure but shouts through our pain. He also said that pain is God’s megaphone.
In our text for today Paul wrote about his and his traveling companion’s troubles: “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life itself. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, . . .” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9 )
Have you ever felt under such great pressure that you didn’t know whether you could endure it much longer? Did you ask why God allowed this in your life? Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, explained: “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God.”
Later in this letter Paul said that he struggled with a troubling issue in his life; he called it a thorn in the flesh. He asked the Lord to remove his trouble, but he heard Jesus say to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:8)
Author Larry Crabb wrote in his book Shattered Dreams, “Bad times provide an opportunity to know God that blessings can never provide.” (p.159) We almost always feel inadequate in the face of our troubles. If we felt totally confident, they’d be less troubling, and could hardly be called troubles at all! This sense of inadequacy is something we interpret in a negative way, but we need to recognize that our sense of inadequacy is meant to drive us to the adequacy of Christ! We shouldn’t interpret our sense of inadequacy as something negative; it can be something positive! What seems to be a personal dead end can become a doorway that takes us to a nearness to Christ.

Troubles Can Make Us More Like Jesus
Again I quote Larry Crabb: “The good news of the gospel is not that God will provide a way to make life easier. The good news of the gospel, for this life, is that He will make our lives better.” (Shattered Dreams, p.155) We want life to be easier, but God is far more interested in making our lives better! His goal is that our troubles will make us better, not bitter!
To at least some small degree I’ve come to see that when I face trouble I need to pray, “Lord, what would you have me learn through this? What would you have me become? What would you have me do?”
“But,” you say, “I don’t feel close to Christ in the middle of my troubles! It doesn’t even seem that God hears me, that He’s near, or that He even cares.”
At this point it’s helpful to remember that our faith in the Lord isn’t made stronger when we have an overwhelming sense of His presence. Our faith is exercised and made stronger when we decide to believe in spite of not feeling Him near. Remember the definition of faith in the book of Hebrews in the Bible: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1) When we feel that God is near, it doesn’t take much faith to believe that He’s there. When we don’t feel Him near but affirm that He’s near in spite of that, we’re exercising real faith. Faith is like a muscle: when it’s exercised it grows stronger!
The bottom line is that when we face our troubles with this attitude, we’re going to grow closer to Christ and become more like Him! Troubles can be like the grit that pounds against a stone. Troubles can wear away our rough edges and make us like smooth stones. Troubles can make us more like Christ — and there’s no better goal in life than to be conformed to the image of Christ, becoming more like the One we seek to love most of all!
In verse five Paul wrote, “For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.” (2 Corinthians 1:5) Paul’s great message — the message of the gospel of Jesus — is of course that Christ suffered for us on the cross. Paul now said that just as Christ suffered for us, for our good, we can suffer for the good of others. We’re able in some measure to help others through our suffering, as Christ helped us through His suffering. In other words, through suffering with our troubles we can become like Jesus!
This is where we have a choice. We can let our troubles cause us to be angry with God and drive ourselves from the presence of the very One we need, becoming less like Him. On the other hand, if we let troubles draw us to Christ we become more like Him. If a person lets his troubles get the best of him, not drawing near to God and believing that God doesn’t care, he gets mad at God and troubles ruin him. Another person lets his troubles drive him to God, and he becomes a better person because of what he’s been through. That person reminds you a little more of Jesus!

Troubles Help Us Help Others
It’s an amazing fact that troubles equip us to live significant lives, better able to help others! When we let troubles draw us near to Christ and help us to become more like Him, we can be used by Christ to help others. Paul wrote, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
Years ago Vern Caswell, a member of this church, had to have his second leg amputated. You’d think that the loss of both legs would have been the end for him, but it wasn’t. There was a couples’ meeting at someone’s house, and we met in the basement. Vern was helped out of his wheelchair and then proceeded to make his way down the steps on his rear, using his arms to lower his torso one step at a time.
Then there came the day when another man, John McHelenny, had to have a leg amputated. I asked Vern if he’d go with me to visit John. Vern accepted, and he walked into John’s room with two artificial limbs and crutches. Vern’s presence as a double amputee offered more comfort and hope to John than I could ever have offered. Vern comforted John with the comfort with which he’d been comforted!
God’s plan is that we will so handle our troubles, with His help, that we’ll be able to help others with their troubles! We may have been wounded by our troubles, but God uses us as wounded healers. God’s will is that someday, in some way, you’ll use the experience of the trouble you’ve been through to help others as they face their troubles.
A rough stone isn’t much fun to hold, but a smooth stone is a different story. You want to hold it and feel it. People don’t want to be around a person who’s sharp at the edges, ragged from being broken by problems. People want to be near someone who has had his rough edges smoothed by his troubles. They find great comfort in being around such a person while they’re in the midst of their own troubles.

Growing closer to Christ, becoming more like Him, and being used by Him are all possible when we face our troubles in the right way, with the right attitude. Of course we’d rather not have troubles, and it’s all right for us to ask God to remove them. However, the fact is that God isn’t as interested in making our lives easier as He is in making them better. Sometimes God can do more good through our troubles than by removing them.
Troubles can make us better by drawing us into a better relationship with Jesus Christ, making us more like Him and equipping us to better serve Him. Troubles don’t have to break us, leaving us with more rough edges. By the grace of God, troubles can polish us. The next time you hold the smooth stone we’re about to give you, remember that!