Today we’re beginning a series of sermons on coping - coping as a Christian. To cope is to “contend or struggle successfully.”

Now I had some hesitancy about the use of the word cope in the title of this series. A lot of people are talking about coping. Being who I am, a Christian minister seeking to proclaim the word of God, I was not interested just in a series of self-help, psychological messages. So I thought for awhile that I would talk about conquering as Christians. Paul said we Christians are to be more than conquerors.

That’s a thrilling word, and I’m going to be talking about some sense of that throughout this series. But as I looked seriously at our predicament and the offer of the Christian gospel, I decided against the use of the word conquering.

To conquer means “subdue, o…