2 Corinthians 4: 7-15
In this passage we can most clearly learn the process in which the power of God is released in our lives.
We long for this power.
We pray for this power.
Every Christian should desire to have it happen in his or her life.
We should be deeply concerned about the ignorance of Christians as to their true power.
We are surrounded by evidences of decay in society, of increasing corruption,
of the disintegration of personality, of increasing hurt and darkness and despair.
But through every day we should be hearing Jesus saying to us,
"You are the light of the world."
In verses 7-11, there is a detailed description of how to exercise the power of God.
Verses 12-15 describe how to display the glory of God.
That is what life is all about.
We are Christians in order to exercise the power of God and to display the glory of God.
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us."
(2 Corinthians 4: 7)
God displays His mighty power through "earthen vessels."
An earthen vessel is nothing but a clay pot.
That is a descriptive term for basic humanity.
It's not very complementary.
We are nothing but clay pots, although some of us may have a finer clay than others.
Clay can be made into beautiful, fragile, chinaware, which, of course, cracks easily.
Other pots may be more rough and rugged -- made of adobe mud, baked in the sun -- half baked, sometimes.
This is our humanity.
We are nothing but clay pots.
A pot, or a vessel, is made to hold something.
We are not designed to operate on our own.
We were made to hold Someone, and that Someone is God Himself.
This is God's purpose for your life and mine.
We are to live in such a way that people are actually baffled when they look at us.
They will say, "I don't understand it.
I know this person. He (or she) is just ordinary; they're not outstanding.
But yet what happens as they go through life is so remarkable.
I just don't understand it."
They can see that the power is not coming from us; it is coming from God.
In 2 Corinthians 4: 8, 9, Paul describes the way that God's power is going to appear:
"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed."
Barclay translates this verse like this:
"We are sore pressed at every point, but not hemmed in;
we are at our wit's end, but never at our hope's end.
We are persecuted by men, but never abandoned by God;
we are knocked down, but not knocked out."
In this we can see the weakness of the pot; we can also see the transcendence of the power.
Transcendent means, "beyond the ordinary."
The power of God is not ordinary.
It is different from every kind of power we know about.
It is also wrong to expect it to be dramatically visible.
It is a quiet power that is released in quiet ways, and yet, what it accomplishes is incredible.
Did you see the weakness of the pot?
"We are sore pressed; we are at wit's end; we are persecuted; we are knocked down."
But here also is the transcendent power.
"We are not hemmed in; we are not at hope's end;
we are never abandoned, and we are never knocked out."
That is how God expects us to live!
The place where we struggle is that it takes both of these.
It takes the weakness to have the strength, and that is what we do not like.
All of us would like to have the power of God in our lives,
but we want it to come out of untroubled, peaceful, and calm circumstances.
We want to go through life protected from all the dangers and all the difficulties.
We want to float through life in our little boats and glide through all the difficulties of life.
We will have difficulties and afflictions and persecutions -- we know that.
We can expect to be "sore pressed," and "at wit's end,"
and "persecuted," and "knocked down, but never knocked out."
We are not sheltered from life's problems.
Christians can face dangers and troubles.
Christians can get sick.
Christians can get cancer.
Christians can have financial collapses.
Christians do go through difficulties.
Christians go through family separations and divorce.
Christians experience problems of every nature.
Out of all we experience, God expects us to demonstrate a different attitude
and a different reaction than people without Him.
God expects us to manifest an obvious love and joy and peace in our lives that cannot be explained
in human terms, but can only be explained by the fact that God is at work in us.
That doesn't come easily, and it doesn't happen automatically when we become Christians.
We have known many Christians who are afflicted and often crushed,
and have perplexities that drive them to despair.
They are persecuted and they feel abandoned.
They are knocked down, and some are knocked down for weeks and years at a time.
What makes the difference?
Paul gives the answer.
His answer is a marvelous description of the process of walking in victory:
"... Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also the manifested in our bodies."
(2 Corinthians 4: 10)
The death of Jesus must be in our experience, in order for us to have the life of Christ.
"For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake,
so that (in order that) the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh." (2 Corinthians 4: 11)
Every one of us should want to be like Jesus.
The power of God is manifest when others see in us the character and the life of Jesus
coming out of our pressures and trials.
We must come to the end of dependence on ourselves and rest upon the willingness of God
to work in us without any sensational demonstration, but changing our whole character
in loving and quiet ways, until we are like Christ in the midst of rejection and the lack of recognition.
Are you willing to do that?
If so, you can have the life Jesus.
This is where we struggle.
We want the power of God, but we want to get credit for it also.
If God does anything through us, we want to broadcast it everywhere.
If anything happens in our midst, in our home, or in our family, we want it to be known
-- that we spent a lot of hours in prayer over it -- that we had helped so and so in such a helpful way.
We want to get credit every time.
We want the life of Jesus, but we also want the satisfaction of our flesh.
We want to be serene of spirit and gentle and compassionate of heart,
but we also want the pleasure of telling people off when they are out of line.
That's a great joy, isn't it?
It is amazing how we want to be free from anxiety, to have an untroubled, serene spirit about the future,
but at the same time, we insist on the pleasure of worrying.
We enjoy worrying.
We feel so much more fulfilled, if we have worried for a while.
At least, we should do our share of worrying.
We sometimes have the attitude, "If I don't worry, who will?"
We say this, as though someone has to worry or nothing can be accomplished.
That's our real problem.
We want the kingdom of God, and we want our own personal rights as well.
But we cannot have both.
This is where the new covenant brings us,
"always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus,
in order that the life of Christ may be manifest in our mortal flesh." (Verse 10)
Verse 11 helps us because God takes over.
"While we live (not after we die, but while we live) we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake."
Verse 10 is a conscious choice, we must make where we agree to give up our personal desire
for recognition and significance in order to let God give it back to us in the right way.
Verse 11 tells us that God also places us in circumstances where we have to die, whether we like it or not.
Have you been in those circumstances, where no matter what you do;
you cannot seem to get any glory or credit for yourself?
That is exactly where God wants you because out of those times of inordinate pressure,
times of hurt and despair and heartache and a sense of being wasted and not used,
God is working His will in us.
We must remember that it is God's work that brings triumph, not ours.
Now see what will happen in the church when this begins to happen among us.
"So death is at work in us, but life in you.
Since we have the same spirit of faith as he had, who wrote,
'I believed, and so I spoke,' we too believe, and so we speak..." (2 Corinthians 4: 12, 13)
Paul is quoting from Psalm 116, where the psalmist declares by faith that the trials and the pressures
he is going through are going to have some effect and impact in his surroundings.
He cannot see it yet, but he says it is going to be true because God has said it.
Paul also says,
"I don't see the life in you yet, but I know it is coming.
We are going through the death; we are going through the pressure and the heartache,
but it is going to have an impact on you.
I know it is coming because that is the kind of God we serve."
"... Knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Christ,
and bring us with you into his presence." (Verse 14)
Paul's confidence grows that this sharing is the very essence of life in the body of Christ.
We share life with one another, and as we lose ourselves in costly service,
life becomes visible in someone else.
We all know how this can happen, even in a family.
Parents give themselves for years in order that their children might enjoy things.
We do this with one another in the body of Christ.
We can endure the loneliness of prayer, and the faithfulness of upholding one another,
the difficulty of counseling each other, and see life come, as a result, in someone else.
Paul concludes this with a wonderful picture of where it all comes out:
"For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people,
it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God."
(2 Corinthians 4: 15)
Notice, where it ends -- with increased thanksgiving.
There are those who will tell us that if we take certain praise expressions,
such as, "Praise the Lord," "Hallelujah," or "Praise Jesus,"
and say those over and over again in times of heartache;
we can force God to deliver us from our trial.
They're indicating that we can manipulate God into it by using praise.
That is not what Paul is talking about.
Paul is talking about people who have gone through great sorrow, deep hurt, real heartache,
but in the midst of it, they have looked to God for strength and have found His comfort.
They have known and trusted His love, and the result has been a wonderful inner joy and peace
and strengthening in the midst of the trial; so that they cannot help but give thanks to God
that the whole thing came about.
Some years ago, there was a letter in Decision Magazine from an individual.
Only the initials of the writer were published.
It rings with triumphant thanksgiving.
"For a long time, I had been bitter about life.
It seemed I had been dealt a dirty blow, for since I was twelve years old,
I have been waiting for death to close in on me.
It was at that time, I learned I had muscular dystrophy.
I fought hard against this disease and exercised hard, but to no avail.
I only grew weaker.
All I could see was what I had missed.
My friends went away to college, then got married and started having families of their own.
When I lay in bed at night thinking, despair would creep from the dark corners to haunt me.
Life was meaningless.
In March of last year, my mother brought home from our public library,
Billy Graham's book, World Aflame.
I started reading it, and as I read, I realized that I wanted God.
I wanted there to be meaning in life.
I wanted to receive this deep faith and peace.
All I know is that now my life has changed, and I now have joy in living.
No longer is the universe chaotic.
No longer does life have no goal.
No longer is there no hope.
There is instead,
'God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should...'
I continue to grow weaker.
I am close to being totally helpless and am in pain most of the time, but sometimes, I am so glad I am alive
that it is hard to keep myself from bursting at the seams.
I can see for the first time the beauty all around me, and I realize how very lucky I am.
Despair is such a waste of time when there is joy;
and lack of faith is such a waste of time when there is God."
This is the kind of thanksgiving that glorifies God.
Out of the midst of the pain, the pressure, the heartache, and the perplexities,
there comes a joy, a strength, a faith, and a love
which shows us that the power is not coming from us, but from God.
That is what impresses the world.
May God help us to live like that.
Sermon by Dr. Harold L. White