Bible Guys Classics: 2 Corinthians 4

Well, Jeff, you know what's amazing today is how in the first century, how they knew there was going to be a band called Jars of Clay. That's pretty amazing. Yeah, and boy, that's a shout out from when the nineties. Yeah, and that was the last time you were cool. So he's Chris and I'm Jeff. I was never cool, and we're the Bible guys. Okay, fu man, I took a shot at you. I don't know why that was kind of me. Well, I've heard you say before though. It's a funny joke that just sort of comes out whenever the opportunity presents itself. Yeah, exactly. Well, it's we're both getting old, is what's happening right right? Yep. So it doesn't seem like it was that long ago that Jars of Clay was cool. I saw it. I saw a TikTok that said, when somebody says thirty years ago, he goes, I think of the nineteen seventies. But the reality is he goes, it was just before the turn of this. He goes in the nineties, and. He goes, I need to stop and take a nap. You know, we're just getting old, man. So you know, those of you that have been faithful listeners, you know that Chris and I really play close attention to the headlines, especially from trustworthy news sources like the Babylon be right, and if you don't know, the Babylon b is a satire site and very funny. People seem to get confused by that. It's my favorite mainstream media. It's one of my favorite segments because it's such sophisticated humor. Yeah. So this one today, this article is all about the Book. Of First Corinthians. Yeah, and the premise is the headline is early church leaders excited for letter from Paul that probably says how good they're doing? Right, So they have not yet read the letter, right, and they're excited because they just got it. And the picture of some guy like they're all smiles and they're opening up a scroll. Yeah. So here it is corinth elders at the church in Corinth assembled their flock ahead of the Lord's Day excite did the read a letter that had been delivered on behalf of the apostle Paul. Church leadership was reportedly eager to have the contents of the letter read since it would probably say what a good job they were doing. Yeah, Paul totally loves us. Christmas, a church member told the unidentified courier who carried the letter all the way from Ephesus, I just knew he'd write us. I'm pretty sure we're best friends. I mean, he baptized me himself. I'm not like one of those dweebs who got baptized by Apollos. It's funny because Paul didn't baptize hardly anybody in Corinth. By the way, this is THEO who's part of Team Cephis admits he's especially excited to hear what Paul thinks of their various clubs and cliques that divide. The church up in fun ways. That's really good. We've gone to great lengths to encourage divisions so that each of us can worship God in our own way based on which teacher we follow, he said. I bet Paul is super impressed. So good. The free spirited congregation is also expecting high marks for how they aren't super judgy and didn't yell at Steve when he started sleeping with his father's wife because that would have. Been mean that. I guess you could say we've got this, said gayis a church member who was also baptized by Paul. I think this letter is going to be a real morale booster. At publishing times, some members of the Corinthian Church were arguing that the letter must be a forgery because it was so rude. That's so good, that's so good. Everything that they were proud of. Remember, because he all through the Book of first and you're even proud of this, right right, And then he'd have to smack him down and then so that's what this. Whole lot article is about. So very funny. All right, Well, we're jumping into chapter four today, yeah, and talking about this idea of jars of clay, which is just a fantastic description quite honestly, of how Christians function and serve and how God intends to do his work even with imperfect vessels. So here we go. We're just going to read Second Corinthians chapter four. He says, Therefore, since God in his mercy has given us this new way, we never give up. We reject to all shameful deeds and underhanded methods. We don't try to trick anyone or destroy their word of God. We tell the truth before God, and all who are honest know this. If the good news we preach is hidden behind a veil, it's hidden only from people who are perishing. Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the good news. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. You see, we don't go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is the Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for jesus sake. For God, who said let there be light in the darkness, has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We know we have this. We now have this light shining in our hearts. But we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we're not crushed, replexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We're knocked down, but we're not destroyed through suffering. Our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies. Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. So we live in the face of death. But this has resulted in eternal life for you. But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith as Psalma said when he said, I believe in God, so I spoke. We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. All of this is for your benefit. And as God's grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving and God will receive more and more glory. That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweigh them and will last forever. So we don't look at the troubles we can see now, rather we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. Yeah, there it is. So it is pretty wonderful that Paul is able to, you know, use visual aids because I'm a visual aid guy. I love visuals and I love the comparisons. And you know, yesterday we talked about the veil. Paul used that as an illustration, and he refers back to it as well. But then he. Also sort of, you know, launches right into this idea of like it's we're jars of clay, and it's actually not us that are important or valuable. In fact, we are nothing more than just you know, everybody knew jars. You know, we know what jars of clay are. You Clay's made from the ground, and you know, they're a dime a dozen, and they break easily, and they're worth really hardly anything, and they're really common. But it's what you. Put in the jars of clay that has the potential to be very precious. The value is what's inside. Right, what's inside, And that's that's what he's saying. So Jesus is in us, the light of God is in us, the Gospel is in us, the power. Of God is in us. And then Paul also makes reference again about not having to boast about himself that it sort of connects to that further. You know, like, we're not we don't need. Letters of recommendation, right, We're not talking about the power in ourselves. We do not have to boast about ourselves because Jesus Christ is the one who's the power in us. So it's really cool. Yeah, And the jars of clay concept, what he's trying to explain is he's trying to be humble. And I think that this is important recognizing that apart from the message, this valuable message that he's carrying, he's nothing, Right, I'm just a jar of clay, as are all of us. Our importance doesn't come from ourselves. It comes from the importance of the fact that God has chosen to give value to us, right, And so the value is in God and in his message, in the good News, in the Gospel, in this mission that he's on. And I think it's kind of a sweet way to say it that Hey, I'm not perfect. That's what he's saying I'm not perfect, and neither are any of the rest of us. So these imperfect people are carrying this perfect message of God. And you know, oftentimes we'll see Christian people that we look up to or that you know, should be people of integrity, who have they trip up, or they fail or they fall. And sometimes people are tempted to reject the treasure of God's good news because this jar of Clay broke right. And I just try to keep that in perspective that, hey, you know, people around me will send even people that I look up to, are imperfect, but that doesn't minimize the value of the great message of the truth of Christ. Yeah. It also reminds me of how I remember when I was learning how to preach, and I do mean learning right. You have to get a bunch of reps right when you speak, And there's that This isn't a quantity versus, you know, like like more versus and a message aren't better. It's not more spiritual. As long as as long as everything you say points toward whatever scripture you do use, right, Like in other words, you can you can do one verse and then spend thirty minutes applying that verse. Yeah, the idea is to expose the meaning of the Yeah, yeah, yeah, But as long as the I guess what I'm saying is as long as the focus is God's word, not our words. Right, So it's not about the quantity of verses that you use. However, I remember when I was actually starting out and I was speaking, I would I would actually just get up there and I would just talk about myself and and uh, you know, because I'm a good storyteller and I know that, and so I tell stories and I've got people laughing and rolling and things, and then I sort of sprinkle some verses in there, you know, and it's and it's and it's actually when you can sort of sniff out, like it doesn't really sound like that was the heart of the verse. It sounds like you wanted to tell your story and you found a verse to loosely connect to make your story like spiritual. Which is the temptation for most speakers. Yeah. Yeah, And so that's what I sort of used to do early, very early on. And I remember my my pastor, who was very you know, he was he was he just had a mindset that was always harping on me and uh, and he and he said brother Chris, which I just cringe, cringe when I hear it. But he says, he goes, brother Chris, he goes. God promises to. Bless his words, not yours. That's true. And I remember thinking, oh, man, that's true. That is something that he has given me and all his goofiness. That's one treasure that I took away from thinking like yeah, oh my goodness, like. Like forever more. That's got to be the focus, right. Yeah. So again in Romans, I think Romans clarify so much of what he says in First and Second Corinthians. In Romans, Paul says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. But he says, how will they ever hear without a preacher? Right? So there is this need for, you know, people to share the gospel. When he's talking about preacher, he's not talking about the paid preachers. He's talking about people who are willing to declare God's words, right, Right. So that's anybody. That's the engineer at the office who's sharing his faith with his friend. That's the mom standing in line waiting for her kids to get out of school and sharing the Gospel with her friend, you know, one of the other moms in there. It's just it's every day people declaring God's words. But he says faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. They need to hear from a preacher. So one of the things I try to keep in mind is there's my words, There's God's words. God's words will always come back or will never come back void mind might right, right, right. So I want. To to make sure that we're you know what, in Hebrews it says that the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword. So if I'm going to stick any any words in, let's go ahead and stick God's words in more than my words, right, and let them do the cutting. I don't want my words to do the cutting. I want God's words to do the cutting on people's hearts and lives. And there's that that really find balance. So that's the concept. Is is my words or God's words clay pot words, right, or the gold treasure of the words of God? Right now? We carry them. We carry the one in the other right, And that's the amazing thing that God has decided for you and for me and for every one of our listeners. He's entrusting the treasure of his words in clay pots like all of us. And that's what an incredible privilege. You know. I love the fact that you talked about how we're all preachers. You know, it's a great reminder for all of us, you know, to be reminded of that. Like as Paul is talking about us being clay pots and he's talking about the treasure that we hold, we have to understand that. We are all pastors. We are you know, the Bible talks about in the Old in the New Testament, the priesthood of all believers, how we are gifted. And so you know, we're we're gifted. And the word pastor is not just a title. It is actually referred to as a spiritual gift, you know, the one who cares. And and so there's teachers, pastors, there's all sorts of gifts, and yeah, sometimes they can be titles, but more importantly, they're given to the believers as spiritual gifts. And there are just some people who have the gifts of teaching. They just do and and uh and and they're found all over the place. In fact, uh, you know, just recently one of our one of our pastor's wives spoke at our in La City campus for the church that we attend, and uh, and I had never heard her and she actually hardly ever speaks, apparently I found out later. But uh, but I actually. Looked at one of our guys and I said, I think your wife has. The gift of teaching. Like she's unbelievable. I'm like, how often does she teach? She's like, well, she doesn't teach on stage, but she sure does teach a lot, you know, off the stage. Right. So, and that's sort of the picture, isn't it. The picture is that you don't have to be on a stage to teach. That's right. Yeah, that's right. That's really cool. You don't have to be on stage to worship. You don't have to be on stage to serve. Right. Sometimes we kind of in the format of how we do Western church services, it kind of elevates the people that are standing on stage. But when we read the words that Paul's writing here, he's either talking about himself or he's talking about the entire church, right, He's not talking about just those preachers. And so then I love it as you as you move in then of course, there's this awareness that we carry this gospel, that there's a cost to it, and so he says, you know, we're pressed on every side by troubles, but we're not crushed. And you read that those whole next couple of verses. He's talking about the struggles, but we're not going to be overcome by those struggles. And I think it's a good reminder for us, especially those of us that are listening here in the US. We have, you know, thousands of listeners around the world, but those of us that are in the US sometimes we can feel like, man, the world is changing very quickly, and where Christianity used to be kind of very much mainstream and totally accepted, now you know, there's this warfare, quite honest, spiritual warfare that's going on between light and darkness in our nation, and we're feeling marginalized and we're starting to feel oppressed. The difference between our oppression and Paul's was, you know, the difference between being physically beaten for Paul and us being maybe mocked or minimized or whatever. And so if Paul can say who eventually winds up losing his head for the gospel literally gets a head cut off. If Paul can say we're pressed on every side by troubles, but we're not crushed. We're perplexed, but not driven to despair, then you should be encouraged and say you don't have to either. Maybe there's something bigger and maybe God has a bigger plan agenda for you than just the freedoms that we enjoy. I think you should be a good steward of those freedoms. I think that you should devote right and all those kinds of things. But the hope of the world is not the politics of the world. And so Paul wasn't getting sucked into those things, saying, hey, there are consequences us sharing the gospel. Okay, I'm not going to stop sharing the gospel just because people don't like it. Because he said, you know, these. People are captivated by the God of this world, right, and we shouldn't be surprised by that. I love verse sixteen. I actually just quoted this verse, and I didn't realize as we were reading this chapter today that this is where actually this was. I just remembered it. But verse sixteen says this is why we never give up. Of course, I love those sentiments, but it says, though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small, won't last very long. And so I actually quoted that to somebody who is dying. And I actually just went to a home. Somebody had reached out to me and said, hey, I have somebody who's put on hospice and they want to know if you want to come or you know, actually we want to know if you would. Come and pray with them. And I didn't. I didn't really know them, but they knew me, and I was their pastor for you know, ten or twelve years or so, and so that was the request of the family, so they reached out to me. So anyway, I went there and it was just one of those things. This verse came out of my mouth and I quoted it because what I realized was, even though this person was very physically frail, one of the things that I always ask somebody who's on their deathbed, People say, well, what would you. Say to somebody? And I think that I think, for some. Reason, I feel like one of my jobs is to talk about the things that nobody wants to talk about, right that's that's the job of the preacher sometimes, right. And so I walked in and I just said, so, let me ask you this question. I said, are you scared? Are you scared of dying? And you know? And then they just talked to me. And sometimes they'll say things that the family will say later on. Man, they've never talked about that ever. I've never once in their entire lives heard them talk about that. But I looked at this particular woman and I said, are you scared? I mean, just without even batting and eye. Nope, not at all. And that's what reminded me this verse. Her spirit was being renewed day by day, and her spirit was strong, and her body was very frail. You can see everything in her hands, her skelets and everything else. But man, her spirit was being renewed every passing day. I've seen that so many times where it's like part of the grace of God, the fear of Had you asked her five years ago, hey, are you afraid of death? Most of us go yeah. And it's the uncertainty of it, right, No, sure, But there's this grace that God gives to those who have been growing up in faith in Christ. There's this grace that God gives it the closer to death that we get over and over and over again. I've met with Christians who go, I think I'm ready, right, They're not in a hurry, right right, but I'm okay. It's not as scary as I thought it was going to be as they begin to head in that direction. And I think that that's one of. The reasons why we we need to desire to continue to grow in our faith. You know. The note for verse eighteen says, Paul gives a strategy for how to cope with terrible illness, persecution, or pain. We are to fix our hope. Not on this life, but on the life to come. Knowing that we will live forever in God with God in a place without sin and suffering, can help us live above the pain that we face in this life, right, and so he says, so we then, so we don't look at the troubles we can see now, rather we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. That's one of the ways we know he's a Southerner because he's fixing his eyes on something right, but both Yeah, he's fixing to do something. That's another word of your standing jokes. Yeah, yeah, say it all the time. Well he says it two or three different times right right where he's fixing to do this or fixing that, fixes gaze on christ and so he says, for the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. You know, we just came through the Christmas season and piles of presents and all those exciting things, and eventually everything that got passed out and unwrapped will be in the dump right right, And but we lived for those things. Matter of fact. Now everybody's trying to figure how to pay for those things right right, right, And you might feel like you're paying for these things for eternity. But what he's trying to do is he's trying to differentiate. You have so much more peace when you put your eyes on what is eternal and the fact that you're going to live far longer on the other side of this life than you will hear on this planet. And so instead of you know, getting caught up and all the stresses and difficulties of this life, instead investing those things are going to last forever, and when you do, you have a totally different perspective, and it eliminates or alleviates a lot of those fears and stresses. Yeah, so living with an eternal perspective is what he's talking about. Hey, by the way, this is totally off topic. Just thirty seconds. Is you know, maxing out credit cards and figuring out how to pay for things? Right? Isn't it interesting how it's so much easier just to swipe? Remember before it was like we used to say to ourselves, Man, it's so easy to put something on credit card and not pay for it now, but you still had to get up and go to the store and pick it out and go through the trouble. So the reality sort of set in, like I'm doing this right. But when you're sitting on the couch and you just go, huh, look at that, and with one swipe, you're just like, I just spent a thousand dollars, right, And it's like and if it's and hopefully it's just tied to your bank account, right, it's not tied to your credit card, But if it's side of your credit card, you're like, I could just stack anything. I just want to remind you, Chris, the things we see now will soon be gone. Yes, yes, but the things we cannot see will last forever. Yeah that's right. I got a new Apple TV. Oh good for you. Yeah yeah. So it's the new four K one and I just it was. All like one hundred and like sixty bucks whatever, but but I just remember swiping it. I just swiped it and I was like, it'll be here on Tuesday. What. It's amazing, it's funny. So so yeah, so tomorrow we're picking up and and Paul is going to be talking about having brand new bodies and he goes back to this idea of of the tent, uh you know, earthly tents versus tabernacles, which again again it's just Paul is a master at visual aids. So that's what we're talking about tomorrow on the Bible guys,