We are living in a day in which people don’t know how to work out their differences. This is especially true in their most meaningful relationships. In an age where relationships are struggling, the most challenging but rewarding relationship is marriage. It is the foundation of our society. It’s where a new generation is born and developed. It is where values are taught, both positive and negative. It is one of God’s greatest tools to shape our lives, and it becomes the most profound example of what it means to be in a relationship with God. It is interesting that in both the Old and New Testaments, we see marriage as a key metaphor for understanding our covenant relationship with God and our oneness with him. Marriage is the place where we learn to pour out our lives for another, and when children come along, they increase our capacity for giving.

Yet, it is also the relationship where we are most exposed and vulnerable. It is the place of greatest joy, but also of greatest pain. So, how can we work to make this critical relationship, and other close relationships, not only work but thrive? How can we build healthy, loving relationships where challenging obstacles can seem to hinder that goal? The best place to turn for instructions is the operator’s manual. God, the originator of marriage, gives us amazing insights into how to grow our marriage or other meaningful social relationships. Here, we'll discover what makes people attractive, and the answers may surprise you.

Too often, we look for the subtle things that hinder us from becoming all we desire to be, but we overlook the obvious ones. We can so easily profess an orthodox belief but allow worldliness and ungodly living to totally defeat us in our lives. How many here realize that orthodoxy in our belief is good, but without practicing what we say, it’s useless. What good is a proper and right belief structure when we have an unloving and critical attitude towards others? Or we may have an indifferent and distant attitude towards those around us, which grieves the heart of God.

You may be the first to admit that things aren’t all that you want them to be in your life. You genuinely desire to know God and grow in Him. You desire to overcome areas of struggle and difficulty, but you just can’t seem to beat it.  You’re on the slippery slopes of sin, and you find yourself sliding down more often than walking in spiritual victory and vitality. You’ve prayed and responded so many times, hoping to solve the perpetual struggles in your life. You wonder, how can I experience the freedom that Jesus promised to each believer over sin? How can I apply the gospel to my everyday life and live the good news and not just talk about it? We are going to look at how Christ’s death and resurrection impact our lives as we overcome sin. 

In 911 A. D., a Carolingian ruler of France secured the services of a Viking named Roland to safeguard the coast of what is now present-day Normandy. He was successful in warding off other Viking attacks and integrated into French life, becoming a Christian and embracing the French language. This area became known as Normandy because these Vikings originated from the north.

The Vikings then turned their raiding to England. In 980 A.D., the Anglo-Saxon king, Ethelred, created an alliance with the Normans by agreeing to marry the daughter of the Duke of Normandy. This decision had an impact then and in the near future.  

In 1066 A.D., the Anglo-Saxon king, Edward the Confessor, died, and there was no heir. Immediately, three people made claims to the throne: Harald Hardrada, king of Norway; Harold Godwinson, the Earl of Wessex; and William, Duke of Normandy, a descendant of that union between Ethelred and his Norman wife, who later became known as William the Conqueror.

Harold Godwinson defeated the Norwegian king, but the cost was so great that when William invaded England a few months later, he was killed in battle at Hastings and eventually conquered all of England. He placed Norman aristocracy over land holdings in England, and the language of court became French. Today, the English language is embedded with words from French roots.

The decisions we make today impact not only our lives but others. We know we affect our family. Christianity is more than just a prayer of introduction; it is a total surrender of our lives to God. Many people continue to struggle in their Christian life, but one reason is that we still try to hang onto the past. Another reason we struggle is when we follow Jesus from a distance. Like Peter, on the night he betrayed Jesus, his faith was challenged, and he faltered and failed. We can expect that each of us will be tested and our faith challenged at different moments in life. Will we deny Him? How can we move past living an inconsistent lifestyle, and walk in freedom and be spiritually healthy?

“In his provocatively titled book From Darwin to Hitler, historian Richard Weikart examines the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on the ethics and morality of social thinkers in Nazi Germany. Believing that Darwinism had overturned any sense of the sanctity of human life, an evolutionary ‘fitness’ (especially in terms of intelligence and health) became the highest arbiter of morality for the Nazis.  Weikart concludes that Darwinism played a strategic role not only in the rise of euthanasia, infanticide, abortion and racial extermination-all ultimately embraced by the Nazis.

The contention that Hitler built his views on Darwinian principles raises one of the most important truths a mind can comprehend: Ideas have consequences.”

While many people in our current society believe that this concept of evolution, with its corresponding concept of the survival of the fittest, rejects God or any intelligent designer of our world. A naturalistic and scientific explanation is the only reasonable and intelligent position that many people maintain. If one is to challenge or doubt their position, they are then considered unreasonable, stupid, dangerous, insane, and even wicked. Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett would argue this position quite vehemently.  

In Dennett’s ‘Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, he writes: “To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant-inexcusably ignorant.”  Richard Dawkins wrote in a 1989 New York Times book review that ‘it is absolutely safe to say that if you meet someone who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).”

So, what does the Bible have to say about the origins of matter, life, and the existence of God? The bible never tries to prove God; rather, it simply makes that a statement of fact.  Psalm 19 explains not only how God reveals himself but also exposes our true condition before him.   

How can we see through the lies and deception that come our way? We might immediately think of how others come across, but the deeper question we need to ask ourselves is: what are we communicating with others? Are we living an authentic life? There is nothing worse than living a life of self-deception. How does God view our lives?               

As we come to the close of the letter, we hear Paul’s final exhortation, prayer, and appeal for the Corinthians to respond to his message of correction. He calls them to examine themselves. It was Socrates who said, “That the unexamined life is not worth living.”

What should be the goal of a godly parent in raising children? It would be that our children would come to know the Lord and wholeheartedly serve him. One reason is that this is in their best interest. But what happens when they rebel and are seduced and deceived by what this world has to offer? How do we respond to this kind of heartache? Here we find Paul acting as a loving father to this church community that he had established. Yet, they were struggling with an arrogant attitude. While some intruders had invaded the church with their visions and revelations, challenging Paul’s authority and preaching a distortion of the gospel, the Corinthians remained silent, rather than defend their spiritual father in the faith.

Paul had to defend himself, whereas the Corinthians, who owed Paul the debt of bringing the gospel to them at great cost, ought to have defended him, but were silent. Kent Hughes relates: “Thus their failure to defend Paul was an inexcusable sin of silence. Rather they, as his letter of commendation, should have been commending and defending him.”

Paul's deepest concern was that they were being led astray. It is a painful time in a parent’s life when children begin to distance themselves from the values of their spiritual upbringing and begin embracing the worldly values often shared through friends, media, and others who mock the things of God. In 2 Corinthians 12:11-21, Paul is challenging his spiritual children about a drift from the faith and a falling into worldly and sinful behaviour that excludes people from God’s kingdom. What can we learn from Paul’s letter and how he addressed his deepest concerns about their rejection of him and his message? This is often what happens when people rebel. Those who had guided them- parents, friends, mentors are often rejected. We can take this personally and make the focus about our hurt, or we can understand that there is something more sinister happening here and the focus should be on the person who is being deceived and led astray. They are, in one sense, rejecting God, the ultimate authority, but at that moment the rejection is experienced by the person who has been the authority figure in their life.

In this second half of chapter twelve, we discover the heart and warnings of someone who deeply loved the Corinthian believers who were spiritually immature, haughty, and proud. Can we learn something from Paul’s heart and actions which will help us to respond to our wayward children, other family members, and close friends? In the challenges that Paul faced with this congregation, we glean something of the true nature of Christian leadership and ministry. There are three things Paul does to deal with these challenges that are presented to him by the sinful immaturity in the lives of those he is fathering in the faith.

In addressing the challenges at Corinth, Paul faced ongoing conflict with false teachers. Paul’s final presentation to the Corinthian church, aimed at persuading those who were being influenced and drawn away from a biblical understanding of Jesus and the gospel, addresses the sensationalism of the false teachers' visions and revelations. Even today, people are wowed by people retelling sensational and spiritual experiences. This can be a means to dupe people away from the truth. We know this was also true in the ancient world.

Now, for some time, a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city, astounding all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.”

They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. 

Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12, is answering criticisms levelled at him and his message from these false teachers. Their aim is to discredit Paul in the eyes of the Corinthians. Paul now speaks to the issue of visions and revelations. It is with reluctance that Paul relates his personal experience in this area of his life. This was so personal to Paul and was designed to possibly help him in the great challenges he would face in his ministry. What is interesting is that, until this point, he hadn’t conveyed these visions and revelations as he came to Corinth and established the church.

Kent Hughes explains Paul’s hesitancy to speak of these personal experiences. “Paul’s use of the third person signals his discomfort and embarrassment in indulging in ecstatic biography, which he deems of little profit. The very fact that Paul had told no one about his rapture to paradise shows that he considered private experiences like this as unimportant to his gospel ministry.”

The true measure of a person is not what they have acquired or achieved but what they have had to endure, struggle through, and suffer in their lives to fulfil God’s purposes and assignment for their lives.

John Piper writes in “The Roots of Endurance,” “I have found myself in conversation with Christians for whom it is simply a given that you do not put yourself or your family at risk. The commitment to safety and comfort is an unquestioned absolute. The demands of being a Christian in the twenty-first century will probably prove to be a rude awakening for such folks. Since we have not embraced the Calvary road voluntarily, God may simply catapult us onto it as he did the home-loving saints in Acts 11:19: “Those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word.’  …Being a Christian should mean that our trajectory is toward need, regardless of danger and discomfort and stress. In other words, Christians characteristically will make life choices that involve putting themselves and their families at temporal risk while enjoying eternal security.”

Recently, I read a book by my friend, Dean Merrill, entitled ‘Strong to the End.’ “When David and Alicia Lloyd opened a children’s home in Haiti, they had no idea how their hearts would soar, humbled by the way God was expanding and blessing the ministry. And they had no idea how much it would cost—their son, his young wife, and their dear friend. Strong to the End tells the story of Davy, Natalie, and Judes—their lives, dreams, love, faith, and deaths.” It’s the testimony of a missionary couple in their early twenties who gave their lives for the needy in Haiti and were killed by gang violence.

Paul has been addressing the threat of false teachers who deceive and lead people away from the truth found in the gospel of Jesus. In defence of his ministry to keep the Corinthians from rejecting him and the true message of the gospel, he begins to explain what he has endured. In essence, he explains the cost of being an effective disciple maker. Paul is going to focus on the price he had paid to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. What does this mean for us today? What cost will we have to pay?