No Matter How Difficult Your Situation May Be, Never Give Up!

The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 7: “…but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, yet not in despair; persecuted, yet not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body everywhere the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death works in us, but life in you. But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed, and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe, and therefore we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us together with you. For we suffer all these things for your sake, so that grace, abounding through many, may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore, we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is wasting away, nevertheless the inward man is being renewed day by day. For this light, momentary affliction produces in us an increasingly excellent and eternal weight of glory. We look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are unseen, because the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are unseen are eternal…”

Amen. Glory to God. Let us go to verse 7, where the Apostle Paul says, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels.” Those words, “But we have this treasure,” that expression, indicate that he was thinking about something else. He is talking about, referring to, something he had already mentioned before this point. What is he referring to, and why does he say, “But we have this treasure”? And what is the treasure the Apostle Paul is talking about?

That treasure, if you read the preceding verses, refers to the Gospel, the proclamation of the word of God, the sublime Gospel, the preaching of the word of the Lord. It is that Gospel which many do not understand because the devil has blinded their minds, the Apostle Paul says, and whose preaching God has entrusted to us—the proclamation of that word. Paul has just spoken about all the things God has done so that we might come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

It is a sublime, wonderful, magnificent Gospel of great value and great worth. And so Paul says, “This great treasure, which is the Gospel—everything it cost God to redeem the human race, the drama of the Gospel, the coming of Jesus, his incarnation, taking on a human body, laying aside his glory, coming into the world, dying on a cross—all of this, this wonderful treasure, we have in earthen vessels.” It is as if we had millions of dollars in jewels and… in the movies, sometimes there are pirates’ chests that you open and they are full of coins and jewels and necklaces. So Paul says that instead of having that wonderful treasure in a bronze chest, with a very thick clasp and a leather covering, in something very beautiful that is worthy of the magnitude and sublimity of this treasure, we have it in some very rough, very crude, very fragile clay jars that can break and would never suggest how wonderful their contents are.

If that is the treasure, if the treasure is the great Gospel that God has made possible through Jesus Christ, what is the earthen vessel? Us—we who are breakable, fragile, prone to fail the Lord, limited in our knowledge; we become discouraged easily and often have little faith. How incredible that God has entrusted the salvation of the human race to us, the Church! He could have entrusted it to a few archangels who do not eat, do not have to sleep, do not have to rest, do not sin, do not make mistakes, and are tremendously obedient.

Imagine if an angel stood on 42nd Street in Times Square, New York, or in [inaudible], and announced, “Believe in Jesus Christ.” Everyone would immediately throw themselves to the ground; they are tremendous evangelists. Nevertheless, we are the ones to whom God has entrusted that wonderful treasure of the Gospel. We have it in earthen vessels.

Why? Because God always wants… it says, “so that the excellence of the power may be of God.” In other words, so that God is the one who receives the glory. Of course. When I think about who I am, how limited, fragile, breakable, and prone to fail God I am, and I think about what God has entrusted to me as a pastor and preacher of the Gospel, I say, “Wow, Father, you have all the glory, and all the praise is yours.”

If you know yourself, you know that you have to give God the glory. Isn’t that right? Unless you are a fool who thinks more highly of yourself than you ought to think, as Paul says: “Let no one think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but let him think soberly.”

Everyone who thinks soberly about himself has to say, “You know what, Lord? It is only because of your mercy, only because of your grace, that you dare to entrust this to us, so the glory, praise, and honor belong to you.”

It reminds me of the words of the psalmist, who says, “So that [inaudible],” he says, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be found blameless in your judgment,” and the idea is that the glory should belong to God. We sometimes sin, and every time we sin and fail the Lord in one way or another, it is clear that the glory belongs to God, not to us.

So God never shares his glory with anyone. It is not that he is selfish or anything like that; it is simply that no one can. Everything we can do for God, we do by grace and mercy, not without God. He allows us to work for him. And it is important that we always acknowledge that.

One of the things that deeply moves me about the Apostle Paul is that, despite the great revelations he received and despite all his previous studies as a Pharisee, Paul—Saul, who became the Apostle Paul—studied under Gamaliel, the most prominent Jewish rabbi of his time. In other words, Saul attended the finest seminary and the finest university of his day. And he was a distinguished Pharisee, yet he left all of that behind; he says that he regarded it all as rubbish for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ.

So despite all his greatness, Paul was a man who was very conscious of his weakness. You read Paul’s different letters, and you always see a man who was very conscious of what he was. He says, for example, that on one occasion God sent him a thorn to keep him from becoming too exalted—a spiritual battle he was facing—and three times he went to the Lord: “Lord, deliver me from this because it robs me of my peace.” And the Lord told him, “Paul, my grace is sufficient for you.” In other words, be content with my mercy, because my power is perfected in weakness.

God is always seeking this: he is the one who must receive the glory, and we must always acknowledge that. I believe that every servant of God, every man and woman—you and I—must always be consumed, as it were, by this awareness that God is everything and that without him we are absolutely nothing.

And paradoxically, there is great strength in that frailty. The greatest defense we have is precisely that; it is the idea that… your awareness that you are a breakable vessel gives you incredible power and strength. That is why it says, “We have this treasure so that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.”

Then it says something very interesting here, which is like the heart of the matter. It says, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, yet not in despair; persecuted, yet not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

You should learn that and memorize that verse, because it is like an X-ray of the situations in which we may sometimes find ourselves as human beings, even while serving the Lord. You know, I like this verse because it exemplifies the kind of teaching I want our church always to maintain in terms of its position regarding faith, power, prosperity, gifts, and the believer’s victory.

There are churches—there are, as it were, opposite ends of a range of possibilities—and at one extreme are churches that never speak about the power of God. Instead, they talk about suffering, gritting your teeth, and enduring until the Lord takes us out of this cruel world. And everything is, “Lord, help me pass through this valley of the shadow of death, endure, and resign myself to it.” “If I have this illness, then Lord, simply help me bear it.” They do not dare to confess healing, seek the power of God, or ask the Lord to act; they do not draw upon it, and they do not teach people about God’s power and promises.

For example, there are those words of Paul: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” or earlier, “In all these things we are more than conquerors,” and so on. But there are churches where everything is simply a great deal of doctrine, a great deal of teaching, a great deal of gritting your teeth, suffering, and enduring until the Lord takes us out of here—being faithful in the midst of problems.

At the other extreme are churches where everything is victory, victory, victory, prosperity, and success, and it is as if they do not dare to speak about suffering, the cross, or the trials that come into our lives, because they think that if they do so, they are dishonoring the Lord. So all the sermons are about prosperity, success, and healing. It is as though the reality of life did not actually exist—the reality that people get sick, die, have accidents, lose their homes, or take their driving test and fail the first time or even twice, although they prayed and fasted. They are at the other extreme, and many churches today are at that extreme of prosperity: everything is prosperity, and people go there so the pastor can sanctify their greed with a sermon.

And to me, those are two simplistic extremes. I have always wanted our church to remain in the tension between the two. And that is what I see the Apostle Paul doing. Paul was a man who knew the power of God. The Bible says that he was taken up to the third heaven and saw and heard things so sublime that God did not even give him permission to share them with anyone in the world.

There are passages saying that Paul performed incredible healings; he was a man who prophesied, and God heard his prayer. Paul knew the power of God. Paul knew revelation. Paul knew the gifts. There you have, in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14, beautiful passages about the power of God and the balance that must be maintained.

But Paul also knew about suffering. Paul knew about suffering for the churches, the anxiety of bearing the burden of a congregation—and of many congregations. Paul was whipped, stoned, and shipwrecked.

There is a passage where he recounts all the suffering and afflictions he endured in life, and there is a moving passage toward the end of one of his epistles where he speaks, I believe, to Timothy and tells him, “Look, drink a little wine because of your many ailments, because of your stomach.” Do not take that too seriously either, you know; I know you already—you are scheming over there.

It says it was because of your stomach and your many ailments. The point is that here we have Paul acknowledging that sometimes we may go through trials and tribulations in life, as we were saying last Sunday, but the thing is that the believer, the child of God, never throws in the towel. Even when the child of God is going through trials and tribulations, somehow he always knows that there is a way out and there is hope, and he does not despair.

So we have to know that trials may come, difficulties may come, problems may come, but we must always go to the Father and never give up, despair, hang up the towel, throw in the towel, or hang up our gloves. And that is why Paul says—and he does so through a series of paradoxes, a play on words—and in the original Greek, in fact, you can sense it much more… the antithesis between one thing and the other is clearer.

“We are troubled, but not distressed.” It is as if that is not conveyed quite as well in the Spanish translation. In the original Greek, the idea is a physical image in which it says that we are in a tight place, as though we were between two very closely spaced walls, but we are not so constricted that we cannot move or press forward. In other words, in English it says, “We are in dire straits,” meaning that we are in a very narrow strait, but we can still press forward. That is the idea in the original Greek.

Sometimes there are situations in life, brothers and sisters, in which we may find ourselves like that. For example, what came to my mind—and how appropriate it is for this time—is that we are in a tight place. Do you remember the prophetic image of the ship passing through…? There it is. But the ship can get through; it will not become stuck. Perhaps its hull will get scraped a little, but it will come out.

So that is Paul’s idea. And so, child of God, brothers and sisters, no matter what your situation may be, always remember this: there is no situation from which God cannot bring you out. Never give up, never stop crying out to the Lord, never stop praying, and never stop hoping that morning comes after the night. Always remember that. I ask you this in the name of Jesus.

No matter how difficult your situation may be, know that after the storm comes the calm. Never give up. No matter what may be happening in your life, your marriage, your finances, whatever it may be, the child of God takes the stance that I will move forward; even if he falls seven times, he gets up seven times.

That is our stance. We do not deny the problems, but neither do we give the problems supremacy. We may go through different situations. So it says that we are pressed, but not strangled—that would be the idea. We are in dire straits, but not desperate. In other words, you may sometimes find yourself surrounded by the Indians, but at some point God’s cavalry comes and carries you through. We are in dire straits, but not desperate.

There may be difficult situations in life; that is why the Lord Jesus Christ acknowledges the problem. He says, “In the world you will have affliction; but take heart, I have overcome the world.” Paul says that, rather, in all these things—not outside them, not by evading them—it is in the midst of the struggle that we are more than conquerors.

The child of God does not deny difficult situations; he does not deny that we are in a fallen world, with demons that want to destroy us. But what we acknowledge is that, regardless of whatever situation we may find ourselves in, we children of God have an almighty God on our side, and the Lord is powerful enough to carry us through.

I believe, brothers and sisters, that we have to ask the Lord, “Father, help me cultivate that positive attitude in my life, that hopeful attitude.”

I have seen the Lord, brothers and sisters, bring us out of situations worse than this so many times. Do you know how many years we have been building? Since 1994—20 years without stopping. When we finished this building, the other one became available, and we simply had to bite off more than we could chew in order to buy it. And then we threw ourselves into doing the work, and there were days, as there are with this one too, when I did not know where it was going to come from. I had to sit down with Joxmar and ask, “How much do we have today? How can we move the money from one place to another?” and beg God that all the checks would not be cashed at the same time. Honestly.

Let me tell you a story, because I have lived a life of miracles, brothers and sisters. I know what it is to have God as provider, the God who brings us through in so many ways. Listen to one story out of very many. That is why, if one sometimes begins boasting about all the things God does…

There was a time when we were here in this building. I was still very green in this kind of thing, but we had to pay more than 30 thousand dollars within just 4 or 5 days for the elevator, which had already been installed, and we had to give those people that money. And the money was nowhere to be found, and we did not have the resources or the congregation we have now, the number of people, or a host of other things. And that money was nowhere to be found. And, truthfully, I did not want to go to those people and say, “Look, the money is not there,” because they had been generous with us; they had installed the elevator and trusted that we had the money.

And it was nowhere to be found. I remember that I was coming back from taking my daughter to school—Sonia or Abigail, I do not remember; they were around [inaudible]—and I was driving on Route 93 toward Boston. Before reaching Summerville, a little before Summerville, I saw the Boston buildings and the open sky in front of me, and I was pleading because I felt the burden. For two or three days I had already been seeing the writing on the wall, and under that burden I was saying, “Lord, what is going to happen with this? What are we going to do?”

And I cried out to Him, crying out to the Lord, and when I looked up, I felt as though God told me, “The solution is here; your prayer has already arrived.” I cannot explain how, but I felt peace in my heart. I felt that something was going to happen. I remained calm, but my soul was still watchful, as Scripture says. The next day, or a couple of days later, I went to a pastors’ meeting at the home of our brother Sergio Pérez. At that time, Copani, the Fellowship of Hispanic Pastors, was just getting started, and it was a tiny little group of 4, 5, or 6 pastors.

I remember that Sergio invited us to his home and made us a meal, and we were praying and getting to know one another. First we ate, and afterward we gathered to pray. We were praying for needs, and I said, “Brothers, I have a request. Right now our church is in a very tight financial situation, and we need some money. The truth is that I do not know where it will come from, so I would like you to pray for me.”

Brother David Marrero, whom some of you know, was there. I did not know him very well at that time. From where I was, David asked me, “And how much do you need?” I told him, “We need about 30 thousand dollars.” “Well, I’ll get it for you tomorrow. You’ll have it tomorrow.” And I said to David, obviously tremendously grateful, “Whatever you want to charge me, I know we can come up with it within a certain amount of time, and we will sign papers, whatever it takes.” “Nothing. You do not have to sign anything—just your word, and that is all.”

I will always be grateful to my brother David Marrero for that. And just like that, the next day I had 30 thousand dollars. We paid for the elevator; I did not have to go to those people with a sob story or suffer any embarrassment or anything. And a short time later, a few weeks later, we met at a conference in Chicago where I was preaching and so was he. And to the glory of the Lord—I did not know this, but at that moment he was in a bind and needed that money—and by then I was able to… because I had that sacred debt, and that night I repaid the 30 thousand dollars. I wrote him a check for 30 thousand dollars from the church and returned his money. And he said to me, “You do not know that this is precisely the moment when I needed that money.” We were able to repay him in full because by then it was a matter of the cash flow…

Our problem is not so much the money; it is the cash flow. That is what happens in these situations: we have expenses that are coming due soon, because as each stage is completed, they come due, but the money… Now the bank will not give us another cent; the bank has finished giving us money.

One of the problems is that the bank has already given everything it was going to give, and for several weeks now, we have been the ones who have had to pay for everything. And now the loan is also fully drawn. We have to pay it all, and part of it is short-term, with a very aggressive payment schedule until we refinance, which I want to do once we finish the building. But we have to finish it first, and that will give us an incredible amount of breathing room.

In this case, one of the problems is simply the cash flow. The point is that I was able to repay him; he thanked the Lord, everything was fine, we had the breathing room we needed, and we were able to move forward.

That is how God works, and that is how God has always worked. That is why I can tell you, brothers and sisters, again and again, based on my own life—when I tell you this, please believe me—that this is the position of the children of God: we may be distressed, afflicted, but not distressed. That is, pressed, but not strangled; in dire straits, but not…

Never lose your head. Do you remember what the Lord said to the disciples last Sunday? “Why are you panicking?” Why are you behaving so cowardly? That was what He meant, because they came to Him shouting, “Lord, don’t You see that we are perishing? Don’t You care about us?” They were shouting at the top of their lungs. And I always tell you, brothers and sisters: when a child of God suffers, do not suffer like someone who has no hope.

If you are going to mourn a loved one who has died, look, cry hard, but cry… Do not throw yourself on the floor the way we do in the Caribbean; people throw themselves on the floor and have a fit. Those are the unbelievers. The child of God cries, but cries manfully, even if she is a woman. Shed all the tears you want, but do not cry like the practitioners of Santería; cry like a Christian.

We can cry, but… I like it when I am at the funeral of Christian people, mature people, because there is weeping, but it is restrained weeping; it is gentle weeping. It is the weeping of those who mourn, but not as those who have no hope. They are not filled with panic; they do not disgrace themselves by weeping as though there were no hope.

Death has already lost its sting. All it has are tiny little baby teeth; that is all. But we are persecuted, yet not forsaken. God never leaves us. The demons are running after you, but you are not forsaken. Do not worry; the Lord is with you.

And we are struck down, but not destroyed. You fall, but you get back up with your gloves on, swinging left and right, throwing punches and swinging the bat with all your might. Struck down, yes, because a Christian may be struck down at some point, but what he cannot do is remain on the ground. If you went through a situation, if something happened in your life and you fell, look, get up, dust off your knees, and keep moving forward. Do not remain on the floor, and never turn your back on the devil. The devil may land a blow on you, but you keep pressing forward. And believe in an almighty God who will not forsake you at any time.

I am going to leave it there, but I want to encourage you in the name of Jesus Christ. Let us adopt that attitude Paul has—an attitude that is realistic, but at the same time full of faith and hope. Trials will come, difficulties will come, but our God will always be with us.

As it says, weeping comes in the night, but in the morning comes singing, comes joy, comes celebration. That is the word of God for our lives. Amen. Receive it in the name of Jesus tonight.

Stand to your feet. Let us trust in our Lord; let us surrender our lives. If you are going through a trial tonight, if there is something in your life, believe right now, at this very moment, and say, “Lord, I will rise. Lord, I am going to move forward. Right now I may be hemmed in; financially, I may be hemmed in; perhaps my marriage is a little hemmed in; perhaps my relationship with my daughter or my son is a little hemmed in. But, Father, You are going to widen the walls a little so there will be room to breathe. I am going to move forward. I am going to have the victory. I am not going to remain on the ground; I am not going to remain fallen. I am going to have room to breathe; I will be able to praise You with joy.”

Times of rejoicing and celebration are coming into my life. You are my almighty God. I am going to live a joyful life in the name of the Lord despite the trials and difficulties that may come. You, my God, will neither leave me nor forsake me, because You are a faithful God.”

Hallelujah! Lord, we accept Your invitation to a life of power, a life with struggles and trials, but a life with victories and triumphs, growing more and more, reflecting Christ Jesus more and more, knowing Him in His sufferings, but also in His resurrection, His power, and His victory. Make us battle-hardened men and women, acquainted with sorrow, but also celebrating the victories of a warrior and wearing our medals upon our chests, acknowledging that You have given us the victory and have never failed us, Lord.

Thank You, Father. Tonight, fill Your people with faith. Make this church a battle-hardened church, a powerful church, a church filled with the Holy Spirit, a church that does not run from the enemy or ever turn its back on him. On the contrary, Father, everything the enemy throws at us, we knock out of the park and use it to grow and become stronger in Christ Jesus.

Tonight I bless every brother or sister who is going through tribulations, trials, or difficulties. I ask You to open their eyes so they may see You in all Your glory, Lord, in all Your faithfulness, and in all Your power. We praise You; we bless You. Thank You, Lord, because the excellence of the power will always belong to You, and the glory and honor will belong to You alone, Father. Thank You in the name of Jesus. The people of God say amen, amen. Thank You, Lord.